#clients from hell

Hello! Do you have a bit of your time for a story on AI bros and clients from hell? I bring a really fun one!

I met this guy at a con I was tabling at over a year ago, before AI was a thing. He said he enjoyed my art, and inquired me about whether I did book illustrations. I said yes- He was specifically interested in my bigger pieces, the fully rendered and detailed ones. He agreed to send me later a DM to discuss specifics.

For two weeks, he kept DMing me on details about his book, what he wanted, etc. He wanted full illustrations for inside the book as well as a cover, all of them fully colored, painted and rendered. He also wanted illustrations in this style to post on social media to promote the book. I had warned him that something like that would be costly, but he insisted that he needed this to be the best of the best.

Now, I was getting bad vibes from the guy. I shit y'all not, his instagram handle was "The next tolkien". I wasn't however gonna refuse a job opportunity. Now, he finally asked for prices: He had reassured me he was willing to pay fairly for this. Since he's a starting author, I gave him my non-commercial quotes, which are much, much, much lower than the standard for book illustrations. I mean "if you search for how much this costs on google, the lower prices are x5 times more expensive than what I offered".

The guy, upon receiving that, just ghosted me. Immediately unfollowed, didn't reply me with a "sorry, I can't afford it" or "sorry, i was expecting to pay $10 for a full rendered full background several-characters-picture". Nothing.

The other day I decided to search what he was up to. He's now released... THREE books for this series. There's a single review in the first one. Not even written, just a stars one. Also, notably, he had a webpage put together promoting the book, and. Yeah.

All the art is AI crap.

Which makes sense. My guy was very on his high horse about how fantastic of a writer he is, but I guess art isn't really to be compensated fairly. When he saw the "art stealing machine you just pay a subscription for", I'm guessing he was very excited.

So, uh, here's some of the marvelous pictures he generated of the characters, which surely tell you about how great the book is. AI is theft, so I don't give a f*** about reposting it.

I have a lot of opinions about creators who write, draw or make music, who are more than happy to use AI for other stuff- Album covers made with AI, writers using AI crap for book illustrations, artists using AI-made music. It feels like you're sh*tting in any other artistic field and showing how little you respect anyone but yourself. Like, I'll be honest, I don't have interest reading a book from someone who considers that other forms of art aren't real or worth any money. It just tells me you're devoid of any interest for art or humanity.

I've publically gone on record telling folks not to work for ValNet (the company that owns ScreenRant, GameRant, TheGamer, and CBR, among many other terrible nerd/media "news" outlets). They mistreat their workers badly even by the standards of Internet Media Outlets.

So, an older lady that's come here for years and constantly boards her dogs is a bit of a piece of work. We all know this. Like 90% of the time she's fine, but ya know. Anyway, we did her puppy's 4dx. And surprise surprise, it has Lyme disease! I am tasked with calling her about the results, and to tell her doctor's next recommendation is Lyme testing to see how active it is and if treatment is required.

"I dont believe this. You're wrong. How could this happen?" From ticks. On trails and fields. Your dog is not on tick prevention.

"I said I wanted prevention at the front desk." You did not. But that will not change the fact he is positive.

"Well why did you do the test then? Why need more testing?" You wanted the first test. Its recommended. This other specific test will tell us how severe it is, and if treatment is needed.

"You're just extorting me for more money!" This is doctor's recommendation. And for your dog. But you don't have to.

"You're doing this on purpose when I'm going on vacation! You're extorting me! I'm picking my dogs up right now." What. Do you want to talk to our manager?

Anyway. She hangs up. I update the manager. Everyone else heard the conversation. She ends up coming back and telling a completely different story about how the 'broad on the phone said the test needed to be done immediately or the dogs had to leave right now. And she never explained anything about whats going on!'

You know. Like an actually insane liar. That we all know is lying.

She is explained again what is happening. Calms down and says 'that's all I wanted to know!' before storming out. Her dogs are still here boarding, probably bc she realized her stupid mistake and didn't want to cancel her vacation, but also didn't want to own up to it.

The OTHER bullshit (that csr took) was another long time, older client calling at 430pm bc her dog has been having diarrhea since Saturday and there's blood in it today and he's vomiting, they need to get in Right Now.

Well, our one and only doctor in this very small practice is gone for the day. So no. Give your dog the cerenia you have, go to the ER if its an emergency, or we can schedule for tomorrow.

But apparently that was not good enough, bc they called several more times over the next hour. Until Mr finally went on a raging tirade about how they're good long time clients and should he accommodated, and that the doctor should be called back, and also have an on-call number when she's not there so they can call her directly! (Ya know. More entitled bullshit. Like our one doctor doesn't work 6 days a week already).

CSR snapped back at him that No, that will not happen, the doctor is at a special movie party for her 4yr old grandson who has never been to the movies and is DYING OF CANCER.

Here's the first entry:

"please not too serious or fun. Please just be creative."