“So, Client X called me today, and she’d like to do a whole branding and website campaign,” a fellow designer said to me, one night out for a pint.

I had heard about troubles working with Client X in the past. “Client X, huh? What’d you tell her?”

“Well, I gave her a standard ballpark figure, but told her I wouldn’t be able to get on it until the end of next month.”

“And of course she needs all of this done now.”

“Of course. So she suggests that she have one of her friends build the website while I work on the branding, and we might be able to get it out on schedule.”

“But you can’t start on this until the end of next month,” I said.

“Oh, but if someone else is building the website, then I should be able to do it now. According to her, of course.”

“Ah,yes. And this web designer is going to build the site without any branding or content, I’m assuming.”

“And Client X wants me to go ahead and ‘take the reigns’ on working with the web developer and just include her on the meetings as necessary.”

“Ah. So, project management, too. I see. And will you be writing content?” I asked.

“No, but she’d love me to help edit it.”

“Hmmm.”

“’Oh, and if [I] could add a shopping cart, and some cool animation, that’d be great, too, but that might require more work with the web developer. Is that hard to implement?’, she asked.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Yeah,” she responded. “So, no, I’m not taking on the client.”

“Thank you,” I sighed. “I don’t know if either one of us would be able to stand having beers and talking about this for months and months and months. Because you *know* this would change 4 times.”

“Cheers to saying no.”

“Cheers.”