In the two years I have been working as a Freelancer, I have noticed a lot of things about the local clients and their mindset. Even when I transformed as a company, I had to control myself when dealing with the local clients. I belong to Pakistan doesn’t mean I am not going to criticize the people we have here. Freedom of Speech allows me to say whatever I want to about whoever I want to and this is why I am writing this so all you readers out there, please don’t assume and don’t criticize me on being a Pakistani myself and writing this about the local clients.

Clients Standing in a row

Another thing that I find important to highlight here is that by local clients, I am not confining to Pakistani clients but I have also had the same experience with clients across the border in our neighboring country India. Here are the quick facts about them:

  • They are not going to update their site no matter what happens. They’re using technology that was effective when Einstein was alive is not their problem. It is your problem to cope up with that and develop something for them within their framework. You have no support from the framework developer isn’t their issue even. You have to deal with it.
    Reason: Their cousin/friend/relative/student who made it for the first time asked not to update it. He knew if you’re going to update it, the website would crash and the owner would get to know that he was fooled when the first website was made.
  • The design has W3C Validation issues, and has a poor on site optimization but they won’t let you even touch the main code. All they’re going to ask for is a new feature in the website. They’re good as far as the site appears in Google even if that is on the 99th page.
    Reason: Again, the cousin/friend/relative/student who made the site for the first time asked not to touch the code. He knew it was full of bugs and it would have been really hard for him to get it running for the first time. If anyone touched the code, the site would collapse all at once. Site optimization to them is a rocket science to them that they don’t want to understand.
  • As long as the change you’re offering is for free, it is PERFECT; when you’re charging, they suddenly don’t want it.
    Reason: I don’t know if I should highlight this here but I have so hated the fact that people here don’t value time. The time that others invest to bring you something out of nothing. Like, if I am working on something, I deserve to get a credit on this; credit in any form is acceptable. They want changes for free but would not pay anything.
  • Build them a system like Microsoft has developed in form of Windows and charge them for a small script. The metaphors might be way too exaggerated here but that is what best describes them.
    Reason: Even when you explain to them the whole system to them, they only know what they can see and they don’t care of how much of your time did you invest to bring this into the current state.
  • Their hosting is just perfect. They are not willing to change the host as they’ve been doing business with the current hosting company since their business came into being. If the hosting crashes, the system should stay at its position. To a sensible developer, this is the same as I ask Microsoft to give me my session back with all the same applications and documents open as there were when the Power Failure occurred.
    Reason: Why would I work with a company on Information Technology Management if my grandfather worked with them? Man! IT was not there when my grandfather was my age so the sensible move is to transition your system to the provider that is reliable and has quality reviews in the industry. The problem is that the current hosting is cheap! And that is it. They have an acquaintance working in the hosting company who has given them extra discounts.
  • You’re a slave as they paid them for you.
    Reason: Money to them doesn’t lose value when they invest it but has a lot of value when it is the return. They always think that they’re paying you too much for what you’re doing. You paid me for my services man! My parents paid my fees to make me what I am now. Get your services and get going!

There is a long list of such issues that the local clients have. If I had more time to recall more of these, this post would have been the longest I have ever written. I am sure Freelancers out there would agree to this. I have not written this just to highlight their faults but to give them a chance to ponder over what they’ve been doing for years now. We need to change our mindsets to bring a real economic revolution here where hopes of return have to be equal to courage of investment. :-)