It's the little things

[zeus777]

Happy February to you all, fellow Fiverrians.

I just finished an image for a buyer, the original quote was $50 but it eventually went up to
$60 because the seller changed his mind in the process and those modifications required
another gig.
The buyer by all means was a very nice guy, he communicated well, made his points
very clear. He also said that he was a perfectionist which was not a problem.
Since the image he wanted was for business purpose and it cost more than a basic $5,
I put in the extra time to work on it.

It took much longer that I thought because he had a very specific idea in his mind,
and in some cases I had a hard time getting. This happens though, it’s nothing new.
I do get the feeling it would have been muuuuuuch easier if I can just talk to the guy on
s***e and he can tell me clearly what he wanted when he said stuff like “Can you center
the image a little more?” "Can you move it a little more to the right/left?"
I wish I could have just asked him through the PC screen “How exactly do you want it to be moved?” and things like that.

I am 100% aware that moving things around doesn’t require that much effort, but I guess
it really started to get frustrating when those “little things” started to pile up. Each little request was not a big deal, but still. It really got to me when he asked for one last modification
after he gave me a positive review an marked the gig as finished.
Again it was a very simply request, “:Can you move so and so a little to the right/left.”

Because of how the image was drawn, it took about 15 minutes or so which I know is not
much, and I knew charging for that modification will be unfair.
I think I just got simply sandwiched between “It’s a simple change, not a big deal” vs “Oh darn, ANOTHER change, but I don’t think I should charge him because it’s so minor.”

Aside from just the moving-things-around part, in one message he asked me to slim down the character a bit more, and again this added to my frustration since I showed him the line drawing before I got into the coloring in order to prevent modifications, and he said the line
drawing looked perfect.
The thing is I DO understand his point, things DO tend to look different when color is added.

I delivered the image and hopefully it worked for him, but to be honest in my last few messages my frustration was starting to show, and he noticed it.

In the end I do want to believe I did an overall decent job, I do hope the buyer liked it,
I did thank him, but I do regret for not trying to hide my frustration.
Just feeling a bit…sh*tty. And yeah, unprofessional.
I don’t think I’m trying to rant here, I just needed to let it out some how. 😛

OK, thanks for reading. Time to get my hot chocolate!

[fonthaunt]

That sounds like one of those do-able but increasingly uncomfortable jobs! Sorry and I hope it’s finally over! Hot chocolate sounds lovely though and you deserve a treat. Hang in there!

[zeus777]

You said it, “Uncomfortable” will be the perfect. Most of the modifications were not a big deal, but they just got increasingly uncomfortable. I hope I didn’t upset the buyer too much. I had my hot chocolate though, and yes, it worked.
Now time to move and work on my next gig. Thank you fonthaunt! 😃