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Some clients (long vent)
For my translation work, I have a company that has been a regular client for the past 5 years or so. I really enjoy working with two of the guys, but last year a third guy came to me with a translation, and as any of you who have done translation work know, clients generally give you a job and say, "We're on a tight deadline. Can you have this done the day before yesterday?" He did the same, which wasn't unusual, and I gave my regular answer, which was to send me the file and I'd see if I could get it done by the fairly unreasonable deadline he had set. He said he was still working on it, but it would be 16 ppt slides. That was definitely manageable, so I told him yes. He then sent the file - about 65 slides... 
I got it done on time, but I was really annoyed.
Yesterday he contacted me again, again with something that absolutely needed to be done by noon today. He sent me the files, and I said I should be able to but would charge my expedited surcharge because it was such a lot on a very short deadline, which he agreed to. 3 hours later, he emailed me and said he was sending me two more pages to do. I opened the file - 6 pages. I told him I could do it but that I would appreciate it if I had everything by 9pm last night. At 9:15 (ok, not much over the deadline, but still annoying), he sent me another addition.
What really ticks me off is that this guy gets me to agree to a really short deadline under false pretenses, then sends me "the rest" or "an addition." Luckily it has gone well so far because I usually plan a buffer anyway and have been able to finish the extra stuff he has sent, but I find it really frustrating. His colleagues are great, though, so I don't want to lose the company as a client. Sometimes it can be so annoying to have to be professional. I'd love to just send him an email saying, "What makes you think it's ok for you to hire me saying 16 slides and then send me 65? I agreed to translate 16 by tomorrow, so pick which 16 you want." But of course I never would. Blah. Clients. Plus DD is sick and clingy and I had to get up like 10x to take care of her in the night. Double blah.
Anyone else have annoying clients?
Re: Some clients (long vent)
You?ve got to set some boundaries. If they tell you 16 slides and it?s four more, okay. But 65? I?d have called and said there woudl be an extra fee for that, and given the very real possibility that you might not finish in a day. Because some day you really won?t be able to pull it off.
And yes, I?ve had clients do that. I don?t work for them anymore.
PS I sent you a PM
Yeah, but they pay really well and the other two guys are nice. I don't think I can just say no to the one annoying guy without losing the other two. :-/
And YGPM back
Since this seems to be a pattern with him I think that you should go into every request on his part acknowledging to yourself that he is going to actually give you more work. Is there any way you can change your quoting process to include pricing and deadlines for projects that run more than what you're originally quoted? For example, if he says he has 5 pages, can you write back that it's going to be $5 and completed at 5pm. If there are attachments and such is more 10 pages then there's the regular fee and an additional fee to have it done by 5pm and if it's more than 15 pages it'll be an additional fee and not completed until 6pm? And if it's more than 20 pages then the timeline expectation needs to be requoted or something? It sounds like a bit much, but it could probably be organized better.
At one of my old jobs we hired a web designer who would give us a quote for what we asked for and included pricing for things we didn't ask for. I think she did this to show us what her capabilities and restrictions were. Personally, I liked it because I didn't have to ask her about quotes if we considered making changes to the original proposal and there were things there that I never realized she could do that would have been great for us.
Also, I don't know if you did this or not, but when you received the 65 page ppt did you ask him to confirm that he sent the right one? That's such a huge difference than what he originally told you and I don't think it hurts to acknowledge that difference.
I did something similar. In the e-mail confirming I had received the file, I asked something like "Is it correct that instead of the 16 slides you mentioned there are over 60? I will of course need longer to translate 60 than 16, so I might not make the Tues deadline I originally promised, but I should be able to have them done by Wednesday."
As an update: At 9:45 this morning he sent me another addition.
Only a paragraph, so not a big deal, but still. Grr. Sending it off and making up the invoice with the 30% surcharge felt good. :-) I wish there were a professional way to complain to his partners and tell them I love working with them but not the other guy, but there isn't really, so I'll just have to suck it up and, like turtle said, be prepared in the future that this is just how that guy works.
I'm sorry you have to deal with this. That's extremely frustrating. Whenever this happens to me (luckily it hasn't happened too often), if it's a lot more pages I generally treat it as a different job (unless of course I was told ahead of time there might be more pages coming). That way I can send the original pages on the agreed deadline and I don't stress about having to squeeze in an extra 20 pages at the last minute. So far, it's worked for me, and my clients have not complained or left me for doing it this way.
Hopefully you can work out a system with this guy so that he doesn't keep doing this to you.