This happened roughly 10 years ago. I was just a young teen and had a fairly size-able lawn mowing business. I took on a new client who only wanted me to weed-eat (weed-whack or however you all call trimming the edge of yards next to fences or trees wherever you are from) around his yard, not mowing. Makes sense, weed-eating is the worst part of mowing IMO so I gave him a quote for roughly 30% of what I would normally charge for the full mowing service. He accepted and everything went well for a few months.
Then one day I went to his house to get a check for the past few weeks, and his wife pays with no issue. As I am walking home (all within my neighborhood) this man cuts me off as I am crossing a street between the sidewalk (where you are supposed to be walking) WITH HIS CAR. Dude nearly freaking hit me and rolls down his window and just starts ranting at me, with his 6 year old daughter in the backseat. Tells me he thinks I haven’t been in weeks and that his fence (wooden fence by the way) is taking damage at the bottom from the weed-eater. I tell him that the damage is unavoidable with a wooden fence when using a weed-eater. He continues to tell me how he didn’t want his wife to pay and tries to take the check from me. I refuse and he tells me I have one more shot to do his yard right without damaging anything further, grumbling how kids don’t understand hard work anymore.
Young me goes home fighting tears as I had never had any complaints from any of my customers from all my years mowing prior. Big bro and sis help me calm down and tell me that nobody should be treated like that. They give me the confidence and I call the customer and let him know that I will no longer be servicing his yard and he starts yelling into the phone. For the first time in my life I hung up on someone, and proceeded to block him after he kept calling back angrily.
No longer live in the neighborhood but whenever I drive by that house I see a poorly kept yard and figure he must continue to hassle other kids or companies who mow lawns.
Don’t let people push you around because they pay you, you are still a human being and have worth working with/for people who treat you accordingly.