Gotta love 'em Strangeways, remember, the customer is not an interruption to our work, he/she is the reason for our work. We are privileged to have them!   I have a plaque here somewhere that says so.

 

You can see how good businesses start out positive and cheery toward their customers and eventually turn full circle. Grinds you down after a while.
 Keep up the outstanding work mate - some customers can't be helped and nowadays know they have an instant online outlet to vent. Almost legal defamation in a way!

"Grinds you down after a while" - gosh reading someone else write that, wow, it reminds me just how much they do grind you down!!

One of the biggest issues I find doing this type of work
is dealing with Humans

Humans = sometime a generous de******ion.

Sorry to hear mate, all I can say is I'm glad I don't work in customer service.  I used to do a bit of work on the side and used to get caught up with potential customers just after info on how to do the work themselves.  I even supplied engineering drawings I spent a great deal of time on to a bloke on a forum and did not even get a thankyou.  

Just other day a client wanted a clear, blow by blow explanation of the work I was going to carry out for a subdivision of land, copies of the proposed documents I was going to prepare etc, so that he could assess the work compared to the quote I was providing to see if it was worthwhile. It was pretty obvious he figured with a little guidance and some documents he could do it himself. So I added 20% to the quote I was going to give and told him that he was free to get some others.

Still got the work!!