As an IT, I had a few weird customers as well. One was a woman who claimed somebody was hacking her computer and entering her home.
We sent her to the police for the intrusion claim and analysed her computer. It was clean. We tried to explain that her 4 cat pictures wouldn't be tempting to any hacker, but she left frustrated and saying we didn't know what we were doing. Honestly we were glad she left with no intention of comming back

Anyway, in the studio or at my main work, I don't need nor want to deal with people suffering of schizophrenia... It takes way to much energy ;)

I had a guy go into full seizure mode laying the floor with stuff coming out of his mouth. I called 911. The paramedics arrived. They could not get their stretcher into my studio. The distance from where this person had fallen down to the outside was less than 10 feet. They told me that they would have to take off the doors and the moldings and if they still could not get the stretcher into my studio they would have to take a chain saw to my house. I am standing there with my mouth hanging down. About this time the guy gets up asks for some water. He walks outside. The EMTs wanted to take him to the hospital but he refused treatment. This guy was not even a client but a friend of the client who wanted to look at my studio. My heart was beating so quickly after this encounter and with the thought of them taking a chain saw to my house that I almost wanted to go to the hospital in his stead. About a week later this same person calls me to make and appointment for me to do some mastering for him. After considering ALL my options I politely declined.

I have a rack I'll rent out for cassette to CD dubbing and a rack for VHS to DVD. They've both paid for themselves several times over and serve me well for those clients you want to tell - " OK, here are the basic tools you can go do a quick, half-a$$ job yourself and not waste my time." (And even if they decide later that they do want them cleaned up, or edited, they spent their time digitizing them for me - a win/win). It's time they didn't have to pay me for, and it gives them a quick dose of reality, so they're less likely to squawk about a bill for the editing.

I had a genius (who has been in bands as long as I have, and he worked on-air as well as the production side at a radio station) who wanted to transfer some cassettes of his rock n roll glory days to CD. He called me after 3 days wondering how many 90 minute cassettes would fit on a CD. He'd played 13 tapes into the CD recorder, but he said it never indicated the CD was full. The machine sat there for 3 days armed and ready monitoring input levels, but he never actually pushed 'start' to get it rolling.

dvdhawk, post: 430979, member: 36047 wrote: I have a rack I'll rent out for cassette to CD dubbing and a rack for VHS to DVD. They've both paid for themselves several times over and serve me well for those clients you want to tell - " OK, here are the basic tools you can go do a quick, half-a$$ job yourself and not waste my time." (And even if they decide later that they do want them cleaned up, or edited, they spent their time digitizing them for me - a win/win). It's time they didn't have to pay me for, and it gives them a quick dose of reality, so they're less likely to squawk about a bill for the editing.

I had a genius (who has been in bands as long as I have, and he worked on-air as well as the production side at a radio station) who wanted to transfer some cassettes of his rock n roll glory days to CD. He called me after 3 days wondering how many 90 minute cassettes would fit on a CD. He'd played 13 tapes into the CD recorder, but he said it never indicated the CD was full. The machine sat there for 3 days armed and ready monitoring input levels, but he never actually pushed 'start' to get it rolling.

We have tried something similar but...the clients think that you are "on call" 24/7 to answer their questions. One client we did this with called four times in one day and hung on the phone for 20 minutes each time asking all sorts of gnarly question like "which button do I push to get rid of a bad note "and "how can I edit the cassette tape when I hear something I don't like?" It finally got to be such a mess that we told the client to bring the project back in house. i am very glad you have not had our experiences.

Thanks for all the helpful replies and commiserations. It is good to hear I am not alone in my 'client problems"

Thanks again! This is a GREAT forum....