Today was one of those difficult days. Sometimes I can\’t believe that the clients for our project is just so stubborn and overly anxious. Optimistically, I usually say with my group members that having difficult clients will be like how it will be in the real world.

But at this point, I don\’t think so. It\’s her. Our teams drafted up a protocol that we started more than 4 weeks ago and revised a number of times based on her suggestions. As part of the project, we are supposed to visit our target users in Norfolk. We were supposed to go in early June, but it kept getting postponed because our clients claimed that: (1) they weren\’t ready (2) the navy wasn\’t ready for us (3) the proctocol isn\’t ready (4) our prototype isn\’t ready.

It just irks me that we have waited for so long especially when this particular client took off for Brazil (business trip), only notifying us the day before she left. Furthermore, do clients fall asleep while being spoken to? Today while I was conducting a dry run through our user study, she fell asleep. Not the first time either. There was one time when I was a describing a design when I was 2 feet away, talking to her face. Yet she still nodded off.

She did bring Brazilian chocolates to our meeting today. They were really good, but that is no excuse for her inflexible and inappropriate behavior.

One thing though. I wish I was more decisive…and bold, if those are the right words. Thank god for those people in the teams that can stand up to her and put down their foot.