Clent, and I mean "clent"...

[alexpgp]

A long time ago, on the Lantra mailing list, it became fashionable to use "clent" (instead of "client") to describe an atrocious client. Presumably, the term came about because whoever first used it was just too emotionally worked up to type straight. (As it turns out, I've used the term twice before on LJ, about six years ago, but with no explanation of its derivation.)

Late last week, a client proposed a job and asked for a quote. I OCRed the submitted document, applied an expansion factor, and replied. We had another exchange about my word count, wherein I clarified the difference between target and source count, and then the news came that the end client had decided not to go ahead with the job.

This morning, I get an email from the client saying that the end client had done a word count and come up with a number significantly below what I had come up with, and would I agree to work for a fee that was 40% less than my original quote?

My response:

I admire your client's industry, but not his arithmetic. Attached please find an OCR of page 4 of the document you sent. The word count for that page is 191, which sort of highlights the shortcomings of doing word counts by hand, as in the most charitable case, the client's claim that no page exceeds 150 words is a mere 27% below the actual count in this case. I'm sure this is not the case for all pages, but suffice it to say my OCR count of the overall document is higher than 1200.

With all due respect, I am no longer interested in undertaking this assignment. Clients who are so eager to find fault with a word count are likely to have other bad habits, as well.

"The most charitable case" means that the end client had suggested that the word count for individual pages ranged from 120 to 150 words.

My client seems to be a nice person, but the end client would appear to be a "clent." I have other fish to fry.

Cheers...