I received a startlingly rude email from a client, something I’ve only had once before. That time, on its surface, was much worse as it was the day after my mother died and was quite breathtaking in its nastiness, though I was quite numb to it, as there were plenty of other things for me to worry about.
This time it was from a student who objected to an editorial change I’d made, which is fine as it happens often and the point of my second edits is to fix those things, but wrote such a rude series of emails about it, that I told them that I would not edit any more and would not charge for what I had already done, about 2/3 of the full text. They wrote again, another impolite email that they ‘found it very strange’ that I don’t take feedback or payment for work I had done, so I replied that it was not the feedback I minded but the tone, and that the conversation was at an end.
It felt good to be in a place where I could tell a client I would not work for them – at the moment at least I’m in that position. Nor do I think I was in the wrong, and the tone of the emails was such that I felt no desire to placate and reassure someone who was clearly very stressed. But it left a bad taste in the mouth, and I kept mulling on it.
I have decided though that I will not accept any more clients from that particular department. This is not the first odd experience I’ve had with their students, though the others did not involve rudeness directed at me. But clearly there is something in that department which makes for unpleasantness. And these days, at least, I can manage perfectly well without them.