I have a friend who is a wonderful person, but whose memory of the past is steeped with imagination. Recently, she took a piece of personal history and revised it to sound like one of our mutual friends, who was approaching a business deal very cautiously, was an absent-minded putz. I had to remind her of the original situation, which clearly shows that friend taking extreme caution in this business deal, not signing specific contracts, in order to ensure there wasn’t a misstep that could cost him later. If I know her, it won’t register at all. I have a few friends and acquaintances like this and to be honest, it makes for some uneasy conversations, for I’m afraid to reveal anything too involved lest the story become a glorious work of fiction.
Had a client like this once, too. That, my friends, is a much more frustrating situation, for now you’re working against a paying customer’s faulty recollections. In the case of clients, however, we have a weapon – it’s called email. I’m careful to save my emails for a good three years. The reasons are plentiful – on the plus side, a client could love your work so much and want you to repeat the job “for the same amount we agreed to” or using similar parameters. Also, these people are your clients – saving their email addresses helps you to market to them again.
However, let’s get down to the real reasons why I save emails – protection. A client could come back and charge that you never finished a project or didn’t sign off on it, and you owe them more work. More seriously, if someone’s going to litigate, they have two years to do it.
In an odd twist a few years ago, a man who did a project for me sent me a note, a year later, blasting me for never paying him for his work. Never mind the fact that he was to invoice the employer (I was the client in this case), but amid his accusations that I never signed off on the project and his name-calling rants, I was able to produce emails that showed very clearly I’d signed off, very clearly that our arrangement was me as the employer’s client (therefore, you putz, your invoice should’ve gone to the employer). That he never sent me an invoice spoke volumes about this man’s schizophrenic approach to billing – wait a year and bitch and moan. Had I not had those emails, I couldn’t have shown him the error of his ways and directed him to where he needed to get his cash, though honestly his demeanor made me want to leave him hanging. The point is he had his own view of history, and those emails were my salvation.
Beyond emails and contracts, what methods do you use to cover your assets?
I am quite well known with these situation.Its really a matter of sorrow that you cant pay him for communication.