What's the weirdest/funniest thing you've done as part of your freelancing career?

[sarahcmcooper]

I thought this was a question that should get some funny answers! I'm looking for the whackiest job you've ever had, or the weirdest client you've dealt with. Maybe the oddest request? 

For me, I used to help people create CVs and resumes, and I had one guy who was the chairman of his local VLARPing group. VLARP stands for Vampire Live Action Role Playing. I understand being the chairman of an organisation is a positive to put on your CV, but I had lengthy discussions over the fact that it could put future employers off because of the type of hobby (I've worked in recruitment, I know how quickly people can go off a resume or a CV). 

The best part was, one of the women I used to work with in recruitment contacted me because she was an interviewing for a job and got him as a candidate. She told me that during the interview when he said 'role playing' she immediately assumed he meant that they did interview techniques and roleplayed as part of that (it was her only experience of roleplaying before then) and then he went into a lengthy 15 minute discussion about the Vampire Society they had, and what it was all set up as. She couldn't stop laughing while she was on the phone. He gave her their website, and we went on and the website was VERY sexually oriented...

I still wonder if he ever got a job, and where. 

 

 

[melanielm]

I'd hire a LARPing chairman. That takes some serious organizational skills. Perhaps not a vampire sex group LARPer though! Yikes.

My oddest request was to hand deliver printed articles direct to someone's office... halfway across the country. I thought they were kidding at first, but no. They expected me to buy a plane ticket with my Fiverr earnings.

One of the oddest things I've actually gotten paid for was pre-Fiverr (maybe 15 years ago). Someone hired me to come up with 100 different ways to say "Great!" in ten words or fewer. I'm glad I'm at a point in my career where I can be a bit more discerning with the jobs I take on.

[imagination7413]

Well, as long as we're not limited to Fiverr jobs...

I use to work in a photo printing lab in the early '10s. There was a fad for a while where disposable cameras were put on wedding reception tables for the guests to use as they liked. Outdoor receptions usually had a few fun pictures, but indoor receptions were usually not well-lit enough for good shots, even with a flash, often resulting in many images where nothing could be seen, even with the negative scanner settings on max and the computer image editing software. (LOTS of fingers-in-front-of-lenses, which ruins exposure contrast.)

The lab policy was to only print out the images that had something that could be made out, even if it wasn't of anything. As long as the cameras weren't an after-hours drop-off, we often encouraged such orders to add a CD to the order, so that they could mess with the images themselves on their own time and see them better from the comfort of their own homes. We even would include a print with thumbnails of all the images on a roll with any film order.

It's been long enough that I don't remember all the details or pricing, but I do remember one person who had probably at least a dozen of these 24-exposure disposable cameras. Was easily a $50 order at least. ($3-4 per roll of film for processing, and about $0.10-.30 per printed image depending on paper type. CDs were about $2-4 each, and could fit about 100 images each.) It was kind of sad, because of the possible ~300 exposures, we probably only printed about 30-40.

The weird part is that, after they came to pick up the order, they then insist on printing out a copy of ALL the images, after they'd seen that most of them were pretty much nothing but either black rectangles or fingers (another $30).

A real head-scratcher, that one.

[jonbaas]

On Fiverr, eh?

Well, I once developed branding elements for a notable political candidate, who, I believe, won his election.

(No, I won't say who it was, or what country/province/state he was from. Confidentiality and all that.) 😉

I also drew some of my realistic portrait art (of which many of you have seen samples, here on the forum), as a purchased gift.... for a NASA astronaut.

My brand work is also, currently, attached to a variety of new inventions, now entering the market. -- (still under confidentiality on most of them)

I could probably think of plenty more unusual/unique client work related to my Fiverr gigs, if I gave it more thought. I am, after all, almost at 10,000 total brand elements created. I've had a lot of clients, and a lot of interesting requests over the years.

Hmm. Before Fiverr.... let's see... 

I once worked as a copy editor at a printing company that printed religious calenders for chuches (mostly Catholic churches) all over the world. Many of the calendars I had to proof were written in Polish. I don't speak a lick of Polish, but I was able to compare copy to the correctly-spelled master. 

I was once paid to park cars in my front yard. Actually, it was my landlord's front yard, but it was located right across the street from a major annual event that drew in thousands of people. The front yard was a perfect extra "parking lot" during that event -- and located right near the event gate.

Hah! Oh, and as a kid (long ago), I once sold candy to the other kids on my school bus (individually-wrapped candy, left over from a bulk candy purchase). Back then, it wasn't prohibited. I made some pretty good coin back then too. I suppose I'd call that freelancing -- my early foray into being an entrepreneur. 😉

 

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by jonbaas

[miiila]

My most "off-topic" order on Fiverr that I actually accepted, I've called a train station in my country to inquire about someone's earphones that they thought they may have lost there, while traveling through and not completely sober. Commemorative earphones, so to say, so it made sense. Sadly, they hadn't shown up at the lost and found.

[williambryan392]

A guy hired me to comedy roast him. Apparently he had lost a bet to his friends and this was the price- hire someone to mock him in front of his friends. I got on a zoom call for 30 minutes and just tore into his career choice and some other things. They'd all been drinking and I got 5* so I guess it went well!

[sarahcmcooper]

On 5/11/2022 at 2:41 PM, melanielm said:

I'd hire a LARPing chairman. That takes some serious organizational skills. Perhaps not a vampire sex group LARPer though! Yikes.

"Great!" in ten words or fewer. I'm glad I'm at a point in my career where I can be a bit more discerning with the jobs I take on.

Oh yeah for sure! Anyone who is capable of showing they have excellent organisational skills is a good hire. I had to have so many conversations about why it was appropriate to not tell all the details. But no, he seemed to want to share. 

Oh gee, I love that. A plane ticket! Fair enough if they were going to fund the ticket, but if not then no dice. 

I'm lucky to be more particular too. I get a lot of homework requests and those are always immediately denied. Go earn your own degree. 

On 5/12/2022 at 7:43 AM, miiila said:

My most "off-topic" order on Fiverr that I actually accepted, I've called a train station in my country to inquire about someone's earphones that they thought they may have lost there, while traveling through and not completely sober. Commemorative earphones, so to say, so it made sense. Sadly, they hadn't shown up at the lost and found.

Oh wow, someone paid you to do that? That's so cool. Maybe I need to set up a Fiverr gig "I will make phone calls for you", wonder how many people would bite!

On 5/12/2022 at 9:20 AM, williambryan392 said:

A guy hired me to comedy roast him. Apparently he had lost a bet to his friends and this was the price- hire someone to mock him in front of his friends. I got on a zoom call for 30 minutes and just tore into his career choice and some other things. They'd all been drinking and I got 5* so I guess it went well!

Now this is incredible. I'd love to do that! Poor guy though, at least he was a good sport and followed through. 

On 5/11/2022 at 10:16 PM, imagination7413 said:

Well, as long as we're not limited to Fiverr jobs...

A real head-scratcher, that one.

Do you think they maybe thought that the pictures would come out looking different? I don't get why you'd pay all that money... for that. 

On 5/12/2022 at 5:22 AM, jonbaas said:

On Fiverr, eh?

You've done some very cool things! I love the first experience of a business too! Clearly you had an eye for it. I hope to have some fun stories to tell like that in a few years time. I do have some great stories about journalism, but not much else. 

Edited May 12, 2022 by sarahcmcooper
changing quote amounts

[miiila]

2 hours ago, sarahcmcooper said:

Oh wow, someone paid you to do that? That's so cool. Maybe I need to set up a Fiverr gig "I will make phone calls for you", wonder how many people would bite!

I didn't do it for the money, I felt like helping. I actually hate making phone calls, and turn down actual business things to do with phone calls. I don't offer anything the like in my Gigs, after all, but sometimes, people ask for things you totally don't offer, just because you're in a specific country. I usually recommend looking in the Virtual Assistant category then. A while ago, someone wanted me to physically visit stores for cold-calling in person, I guess, you could call it. Sorry, but that's really not in my job description.

If you don't mind phone calls and want to set up a gig like that, better brace yourself for people asking you to prank someone, or worse things, though.

[jonbaas]

5 hours ago, sarahcmcooper said:

You've done some very cool things!

Oh, yes, some VERY cool things. 😉 

5 hours ago, sarahcmcooper said:

I hope to have some fun stories to tell like that in a few years time.

Oh, I'm sure you will. I've learned that the more you pursue what you love to do, the more abundant the stories become. No one gains fun stories in life by sitting back and waiting for things to happen to them. "Fortune favors the bold". 😉 

[sarahcmcooper]

14 hours ago, miiila said:

I didn't do it for the money, I felt like helping. I actually hate making phone calls, and turn down actual business things to do with phone calls. I don't offer anything the like in my Gigs, after all, but sometimes, people ask for things you totally don't offer, just because you're in a specific country. I usually recommend looking in the Virtual Assistant category then. A while ago, someone wanted me to physically visit stores for cold-calling in person, I guess, you could call it. Sorry, but that's really not in my job description.

If you don't mind phone calls and want to set up a gig like that, better brace yourself for people asking you to prank someone, or worse things, though.

Oh I was just kidding, I'm the same as you, I hate making phone calls. Part of the reason I love being a writing freelancer is that there are very little phone calls and video calls required. It's right up my street!

11 hours ago, jonbaas said:

Oh, yes, some VERY cool things. 😉 

Oh, I'm sure you will. I've learned that the more you pursue what you love to do, the more abundant the stories become. No one gains fun stories in life by sitting back and waiting for things to happen to them. "Fortune favors the bold". 😉 

I love that saying, you're completely right!

[zeus777]

I've worked on a lot of stuff that were strange, but here at Fiverr one order still stands out in my mind after all these years.
I've posted this story several years ago so here's a slightly shorter version.

Basically this guy was having problems with his Japanese girlfriend, since his Japanese wasn't that good, and the girl didn't speak English that well either.
He wanted to express his honest feeling to her so he asked me translate a letter for him so I did. Several days later I get another order, he asked me to translate a Japanese letter written by her. I did exactly that. So this went back and forth for several times, and it did feel a bit strange being in the middle of this couple whom I've never met. It didn't take a while for the couple to start getting angry at each other, and the letters got angry too. The guy made it clear that he wanted the translation to sound equally angry so he could get his point across, so I followed his request. The girl replies in an equally angry language, so I translated it while making sure to maintain the angry tone. At one point I started enjoying this, looking forward to reading/translating the next angry letter. 
Those two were at each other's throats!! One thing I'd like to point out is that while I was enjoying this process, I made sure to stay professional.
I made the translation as close to the original as possible, I didn't exaggerate anything. 

I can't remember how many letters I translated in the end, but lemme tell ya it was a LOT.
In the end the guy thanked me, he was very polite towards me from start to finish, and I made a lot of money. So I ain't complaining. 
I am guessing that they broke up after that, but I hope they both moved on and found another partner. 

[williambryan392]

Lol, while not wanting to take pleasure in someones relationship breakdown that letter translation would have been one hell of a gig delivery image to have in your portfolio @zeus777!

[sarahcmcooper]

What a story @zeus777! That must have been quite the experience, I'm not sure I would have liked to be so stuck in the middle like that. But I'm sure a part of me would have loved the drama too! Thanks for sharing.

[teamandromeda]

This is years ago but still funny, I wrote like 50 blogarticles for a company that was making stairs. They just needed to promote their service, which I understand ofcourse but I have definately used a lot of inspiration and creativity to fulfill this.

[khalifacyrusuk]

What's the weirdest, most unique request you've ever had from a client?

Have you ever had to turn down a project because it was too...."weird" and didn't align with Fiverr's community standards?