You might be a bad client if...

Are you a bad client?  Maybe you are but just don't know it yet.   From time to time we all need a little help in recognising our shortcomings.  As the joke goes, everyone thinks they're funny and no one thinks they're bad in bed, so here's a handy spotter's guide.

You might be a bad client if you...

1. Get your advertising agency to write your internal emails for you
2. Insist that the entire project team sit in on four-hour teleconferences that are really just a procession of one-on-one conversations between you and individual suppliers
3. Openly refer to your co-workers as idiots who cannot think for themselves
4. Don't bother printing out materials ahead of teleconferences then complain that you can't open the PDF file on your iPhone and then insist that the tabled multipage documents be read aloud
5. Talk to your legal department before picking up a phone to discuss a problem in person
6. Demand a discounted fee for the privilege of working with you for the first time
7. Refer to internal processes by acronyms and individuals by their first names and get annoyed when asked to explain what you mean
8. Respond to verbal questions via email and emailed questions verbally
9. Schedule daylong meetings  the week before Christmas that start at 9am (and so require people to fly in the night before, thus spending more time away from family) and then fail to produce a daylong agenda
10. Let relationships between suppliers fester to the point where turf wars develop
11. Demand 'world's best practice' proposals where cost, timing and every other conceivable parameter are ignored because you can't be bothered thinking through the inevitable and necessary limitations your company will impose on the project from the outset
12. Insist on having a personal but not necessarily amicable relationship with subcontractors thus disrupting your suppliers' delivery chains
13. Fail to master MS-Outlook and so force everyone around you to second guess whether your hour-long meeting will take fifteen minutes or half a day
14. Identify a non-problem, insist that it be solved and then accuse everyone else of acting like old maids when it doesn't come to pass
15. Can't imagine how salespeople of different nationalities might just get along over drinks and dinner
16. Aren't really sure if you're negotiating in £ or € (seriously)

Glad to have that off my chest.