It is always frustrating when you have an experience with a client that is not great, and one that you would want to expand on in a review, BUT not one that is offensive enough to warrant reporting the client!
I had an ongoing client for the past month. She had a cartoon on the buyer request page that I auditioned for. She asked me to provide a couple of samples, giving me pointers in-between, and I gladly did so! I was incredibly kind and prompt with her right from the beginning. But I could also tell right from the beginning that she was very very direct in a way that was off-putting. Of course I figured "it's okay, this will still be fun of course!"
Afterward she sifted through other applicants, and then told me "you are going to be the five main characters." ALL of them. Could I have said no? Of course! But I thought, if she knew what my samples sounded like and liked it, then I would be okay carrying on, especially since I'll be getting paid for the word count. I accepted. She was just always really direct and gave lots of pointers. Of course it is good for me to fine-tune according to pointers! But they were never-ending and extended beyond my first revision. And she very directly told me to give her word counts for her own scripts and calculate the prices accordingly. This is something Fiverr could calculate for her, and to find the word count, I had to copy-paste ALL my lines into a separate doc and calculate it! That was so annoying! But she was so insistent that it felt like it would be awkward to ask her to do it.
Then she asked me if I could do a black, urban accent (AFTER I agreed). I told her that I knew what she was talking about, and that I'd be happy to try it! I tried it, she told me to do it differently, I tried it again, she said she thought it was great. Cool! So I went ahead on recording the two episodes included in her first order. Of course I understand how long it takes and the amount of work for the pay--I totally got that! But yeah, it was a lot of work, especially because this accent was new to me; I had watched a ton of The Proud Family to study the accent and try to correct mine, haha!! It takes a very long time to edit down a 30-minute recording session as well. (This wasn't the problem at all. It was her attitude and reactions and demanding nature as a buyer.)
I understand the work and to expect revisions on some of the lines. But she wanted me to redo THE ENTIRE SCRIPT. I don't think my accent was great, but I was trying!! I would've felt more okay about doing the revision if the client wasn't so gosh-darn DIRECT and seemingly-unappreciative about it. So I did all over again, studying more examples and keeping in touch with her on my progress. I really was so polite and accommodating to her, and always got my recordings in in a timely manner!
Of COURSE I understand wanting work fine-tuned, and I am more than happy to do that, but she never seemed very appreciative of all the time and effort I was putting into the initial product and corrections. I know that seems like a "well, this is a paying gig, it's just life, just suck it up!"
I turned in the revision after more hours recording and editing. She wanted MORE revisions! It just seemed like she wasn't being very aware of how big an ask this is.
Also, when I record, I always do three or so takes on each line, so that the client has different takes to choose from (I think this is what a recorder would want to do, anyways. And she never specified a certain amount of takes). But she said "The multiple lines gets to be too much. Just say each line once." Like oh my gosh!! Just edit it out yourself! This stuff takes a long time!
I had to do multiple takes per line, for MYSELF, because, again, I was trying to get the accent right, and it took a few tries. So, afterwards, I had to choose the best takes of every line of every character of TWO episodes!
All five of the main characters are all in the same age-range with very similar personalities. And then doing the accent while being cognizant of the changes in character voice was difficult. This was why it took so much time. I thought I did a really good job the second time around (not that this is my project and that she has to have that same opinion, but I was proud of it!), and my personal offer to her was only for one revision, anyway!
"When so-n-so sings, make sure to really sing in her voice." (This was one line. I thought I DID sing it in that character's voice. Her voice is the most distinct one because it's much higher than the others'. The way the client frames her requests just sounds too direct and kinda impolite, which is frustrating considering all of her requests.)
Still being super kind, I thought about how to politely resign from the project/order. I was super polite! I never mentioned the client's own words and directness, but rather the difficulty of the accent (hoping that wouldn't sound like too dumb an excuse). I created a little dispute to cancel the order. Then she didn't respond. I could she that she was online, and she just didn't reply--I do understand if she was thinking about what to say, like I did. But she didn't respond for a couple days, and then finally she declined the order cancel and told me "no I really think you are doing a great job [I appreciated that of course] I want you to keep doing the lines."
I totally could've said yes, and one episode of that would have been fine, but working with this client long-term? Would not have been worth it. So I politely restated about the difficulty of the job, and (I've never cancelled an order before so I didn't know how payment worked) I said if Fiverr let me I would give her a full refund for the trouble! Even though I had already done all that work! Again, she didn't respond for a couple days. Then just today I tried to cancel the order again and she finally cancelled it.
Okay, the most annoying thing? This buyer is a FIVERR SELECT BUYER. Like, she has that label and Fiverr is always telling me "Expect great communication etc. etc. from this buyer! make sure to deliver high-quality work so they come back!" when this was a (pretty harmless but) frustrating client to work with, and seriously, again, I was so kind, prompt, and accommodating! And her profile is stuffed with glowing reviews!!
This is why it would have been so nice just to leave an honest (but of course not blunt) review for others to see!! But because the order was cancelled, I don't get paid for my work AND her probably undeserved reputations goes untarnished. Of course, I'M the one who cancelled the order, so of course that is on me, but it's just frustrating, y'know?
I could report her, but the reason would be comparatively benign, and she totally hasn't bullied me or anything!! Just feel like I need to get a little justice here.
Thank you guys so much for reading that. It was just a frustrating experience and needed to vent about the pretentious labels (not that the buyers/sellers choose that themselves, just that they're pushy and Fiverr rewards them for it!). Ugh!
