During my first full-time job out of school, I got brought on to help with a project that was late and over-budget.  Things proceeded well for the first few months, until we met with the client on Friday prior to our first major stakeholder demo of the nearly completed application.

Client: Why can’t I do [specific piece of functionality] on this app?

Me: Because that functionality was never specified in the scope or mock-ups, and hasn’t been requested in any of our other project review meetings.  This is literally the first I’ve heard of it.

Client: This is a critical piece of functionality, and we have to be able to demo this next Wednesday to the major stakeholders.

Me: Ok, let me see what I can put together over the next couple days.

I worked twenty hours that weekend, 14 hours Monday (Valentine’s Day), and 16 hours Tuesday (my wife’s birthday).  My overtime was all un-compensated since I was a salaried employee.  The work paid off in the end - I had the requested functionality built and working by our stakeholder demo on Wednesday.  Then I got this news:

My Boss: The client just called, the stakeholders had to push the meeting back to next Wednesday.

Me: …

My Boss: Yeah, I know.  Take the day off, you more than earned it.  And give my apologies to your wife.

At least my boss was a stand-up guy.

Source: Clients from Hell