People are always surprised when somebody keeps treating them like shit. The first time? Sure. I get it. You didn’t know what they were gonna do. But when it keeps happening? At some point you have to ask what they’re learning from you.
A friend of mine owns a landscaping company and for months he’s been complaining about this one client. I mean, he had good reason too I guess. The guy was definitely needy and demanding and then, on top of that, he kept skipping weeks too.
And obviously my friend calculates the money he needs from each account and expects a certain amount and so this client was definitely making it harder to run his business. It was at the point where he had decided that he was going to drop him at the end of the year and he was done with him.
And every time he complained, I told him the same thing: He’s only being a dick because you let him be a dick. If you set your boundary with your schedule and your terms and you don't budge, this would all be a non-issue.
And of course, like most people, my buddy didn't want to hear any of that. I get it, right? When you're pissed at somebody the last thing you want is somebody pointing out everything that you've been doing to keep the situation going. All you want is for the other person to realize how out of line he is and to just stop being a dick.
But obviously what my buddy didn't realize is that his client wasn't hearing anything he was saying to him. All he knew is that he could skip a week and make more demands and the lawn would still get done. And that worked for him so why would he change anything?
I think a lot of us go through life thinking that the way people treat us is just something that happens to us. Bosses walk on people. That's just what they do. Clients are annoying. That's just how they are. Family members take cheap shots they wouldn't take with somebody else. You get pissed off, complain to somebody, and wait for the person doing it to finally realize what they're doing and stop.
We all know the guy whose boss keeps handing him work right before it's time to go home. He says yes because it's easier than having that conversation at 5:00 but then he drives home pissed off and complains to anybody who’ll listen about the boss who has no respect for his time. And next week the boss is going to ask again. And he'll say yes again.
For some reason we're able to magically ignore the fact that the boss isn't riding home with him. All he sees is the yes.
And then what happens is the guy will finally hold his ground and say, "I can't stay late tonight." And then that first push will be really small: “I know, but we really need this one tonight.” So he stays. He tells himself, "I'll just do it this one time, because holding the line like a hard ass makes me feel like even more of a dick than setting the line to begin with.” Awesome. You just taught your boss that as long as he asks twice, you're willing to move your line.
The thing is most boundaries don't break when you're in the middle of a fight. They break in those small little moments where giving in feels like the nice thing to do.
You tell a client that you don't work weekends but then you answer a quick question on Saturday because it'll only take a couple of minutes. You tell someone you can't make it and then you spend five more sentences explaining why you can't make it and all you're doing is giving him five different reasons to argue with. Or maybe you say you're going to leave at 5:00 but instead of phrasing it definitively you say something like, "Is it okay if I leave at 5:00?" and end up giving the other person choices you never meant to give them.
Nothing about that feels like some big surrender while you're doing it. It feels completely normal. You're just trying to be helpful. You're trying not to make every tiny little thing a confrontation. If you do summon up the nerve to create some limits, enforcing it can feel even worse sometimes. You already risked looking rude by saying it to begin with. Now they're pushing back and you don't want to look like an even bigger asshole by holding your line, right?
So yeah you let that first exception go just because it's small and it's the first time. Because surely they know you just mean it as an exception, right?
Of course not. They know exactly what happened when they pushed. See, that first test is the cheapest one to pass but it's also the most expensive one to fail.
That's why one of the greatest epiphanies I've had in life has been this: people treat you how you tell them to treat you. And more often than not you tell them without saying a single word. Your fast reply to their text says you're available anytime. Your "no worries" says there wasn't a problem to begin with. Your extra hour when you were leaving says that the end time wasn't really the end time. Because what you do after somebody crosses the line with you says a lot more than any speech you gave them before you drew it.
My buddy let this pattern go on for months. The client would pick the weeks, he'd make his demands, and my friend would just get more and more pissed every time. I kept telling him he needed to draw a line but he wouldn't do it until finally, he got pissed enough and sent what he called a "strongly worded text."
When the client wrote back, my buddy immediately read it as confrontational and said that the guy was trying to bullshit his way out of it. He was all set to be pissed off at that too until I told him he should read it again. Because what I read was a guy who had clearly been humbled and was apologizing for any misunderstanding he had caused. He admitted that he'd been trying to save money but wanted to make sure that my friend knew he hadn't meant for it to come at his expense. And once he read it back my friend agreed.
And wouldn't you know it, the guy's behavior started to change. He stopped skipping weeks, his tone became a lot less demanding, and most importantly he started respecting my buddy's schedule and the way he needed to run his business. I think it helped that the whole time they were having this disagreement, we kept doing good work anyways. In fact I gave the lawn extra attention over those next couple weeks and the client's wife noticed and thanked my buddy twice by text.
Who knows if that had anything to do with it but it did show him that we were professionals and would do a good job regardless.
Setting a boundary with someone doesn't mean you have to get loud or threaten them or deliver some dramatic speech that's so impressive that it makes sure they never test you again. Because a lot of people will test your lines. They want to know whether this is really how things are going to work now or whether you were just pissed off that day. And guess what? Some people are going to decide that the consequences are worth it and that's fine. They get to make that choice, and you get to make yours.
If you tell a client that work is going to stop if their payment is late, then you need to stop when their payment is late. If somebody doesn't send you the files you need, you need to let the project wait instead of digging up those files for yourself just to keep everything moving. If a customer adds “while you're at it” to the job, it needs to go on the quote. You can say yes to work without teaching them that your time is free.
The same thing happens outside of business too for sure. If somebody takes a dig at you in front of friends and you laugh because you don't want to make the room awkward, yep you guessed it: next time the joke's going to get a lot bigger. If somebody texts you at 10 p.m. and you reply within minutes, you never said "I'm always on," but your speed did. Answer them in the morning.
And when that person you said no to asks the same thing again a week later with a new reason, you don't owe them a new answer. “My answer’s the same.” The more you explain, the more room you give them to treat your answer like the start of a negotiation.
And people think they need some clever line to cover up the awkwardness of these moments but sometimes the only answer you need is “Not funny.” Sometimes it’s “I can’t make it.” Or “Have fun.” Sometimes it means not saying anything at all instead of trying to fill the silence with some offer you didn't really want to make. And sometimes the most powerful thing you do is nothing at all: answer on Monday, stop the work, give somebody less of your time, or walk away if they keep pushing.
And remember, your line can’t change just because somebody makes it uncomfortable to hold either. If they won’t respect it, you can’t force them to. All you can do is decide how much of your attention they get after they show you what kind of respect they have for your line.
I don't know if my buddy's going to keep this client or fire him at the end of the year. There are a lot of jobs at that property that he can get but if things go back to the way they were, he needs to be ready to walk away as well. What I'm happy about is that he learned he had more than two choices. He thought he had to either put up with the client or fire him. I reminded him that he had a third choice and that was to set his boundary and stick to it.
Think about the person you’re waiting on to change. What are they learning from you while you wait?