Mean clients are making self-employed workers miserable

Americans are increasingly relying on self-employment: Workers are seven times more likely to be self-employed than they were in 2000, according to Gallup. As many as 28% of U.S. workers do some work for themselves, with 14% using it as their primary source of income.

But being your own boss isn’t all freedom and sweatpants. Freelance workers and small business owners are frequently stuck working for a less-than-ideal clientele. In a recent survey, accounting software company FreshBooks asked 400 small business owners about their experiences with client calamities. Their answers were revealing.

How can you know if a client will become a hassle? Forty-one percent of those surveyed said “making unreasonable demands” was a good early-warning sign.

Meanwhile, a third of respondents cited “meanness” as their clients’ worst trait, though older small business owners were more likely to say issues around getting paid were the worst. (We get it, boomers, we’re too sensitive.) A quarter of respondents cited “dishonesty” or “not paying on time” as the worst client behavior.

Women are seemingly taking the brunt of this mistreatment. They’re 50% more likely to experience “mean behavior” from bad clients, and twice as likely to say their worst client was “skeptical of their abilities” from the beginning. Women were also 30% more likely to still be stuck working for their worst client.

A bad client isn’t always easy to shake. About a third of respondents said they were able to end the relationship by firing their client, but another third of respondents said they’re still working for them. Yikes.