When You’re Sicker than a Dog
You have to give yourself a little room when giving a client a time table.
I found this out the hard way about a month in to my freelancing career a few years ago. Life has a way of throwing a monkey wrench into the best-laid plans. You need to give yourself room to deal with unexpected sickness, power outages, and whatever else Murphy’s law throws at you.
Sometimes, though, you don’t give yourself enough room.
This week I had the mother of all stomach flu’s. I will not go into detail, but suffice to say that I learned more about my apartment’s plumbing than I ever wished to know. I didn’t have the time nor the resources to work on my many writing assignments.
This means I’m spending this Monday apologizing to everyone whose deadline I missed, or message I didn’t answer for a week, etc. You can bet I’m thankful that I generally make all of my deadlines and answer all of my messages promptly. It’s the reason my clients are being as understanding as they are about all of this.
If I can find any lesson in this bout of stomach flu, it’s that you need to treat your clients well all the time—that way, when disaster or sickness strike, your clients will be good to you.