Now now now.

Clients always want things now. ASAP. I'm getting so tired of seeing that phrase. They're inconsiderate, not bothering to think that I might have other clients who need work done too. But no, it's always, "Hey Rob, here's a project. I know it's 1:30 PM, and that you've probably got other work to do, but I'm just going to assume that you just sit around waiting for us to call, so can I review it first thing tomorrow morning?"

Or, "Hey Rob, we want to show our site to a client, but they don't have 'net access. We need to burn our entire dynamic site to CD and make it work. Oh, and we need this CD in our hands in 3 days. Now, I'm sure you're busy, but I need you to drop eveything and get this to us. Can you do this?"

And because of company policy (which has been drilled into my head repeatedly by my boss), I'm not allowed to say "No".

Now, I understand that we need the work, and that more work is always good... but c'mon. I should be allowed to push back on deadlines. I mean, I don't even have a project manager. I'm expected to manage a half-dozen projects and be their full-time developer and maintainer, and yet I have no executive power to say "no" or "this'll cost you extra". Hell, I'm not even allowed to give time quotes directly to the customers... which makes it awkward when they ask me up front for time quotes.

So as is, I have to deal with inconsiderate, selfish clients, and I have no leverage whatsoever to negotiate with them.

Sidenote:

It's friggin' cold in here! I'm wearing three layers of shirts and I'm still freezing. Makes my fingers ache after a few hours of coding.

God loves irony.

Less than 5 minutes after my post about hating the phrase "ASAP," I get a call...

"Hey Rob, we've got some data that needs updating. Can we get that ASAP? Oh, and we need some other horribly unclear issue resolved right after that. I know the email we sent you makes no sense, but can you look into that? Thanks!"

...twitch, twitch...