Vote on legislation. Flame your legislators. You know, participate in democracy. (There’s some ep love in there, btw.)

Over the years, we’ve been fortunate enough to hook up with some awesome clients. We’ve had more than a few cases where we gained more from the experience than we did from the check. These are the clients that keep you motivated and sharp.

Then there’s the other kind. I like to think we’re pretty good at blocking, but every so often one of these will make it in too. And where the awesome clients keep you motivated, the anti kind suck it right out of you.

Bob Sutton thinks so too. In fact, he’s even written a 20-point assessment to help you spot the clients from hell. (You might remember Bob from his book The No Asshole Rule.)

I’ll let you take the test yourself, but here are a few of the true/false questions he asks:

• Life is one emergency after another with these people.
• My client is slow to pay.
• My stomach churns whenever I have to email, meet, or talk on the phone with this client.
• I would NEVER recommend this client to a friend.
• If I am ever crazy enough to work for this client again, I will charge A LOT more money to compensate for the stress and aggravation (i.e., I will charge “assholes taxes.”)

Truth told, I deal with plenty of good clients who get some of these wrong. But if I had to reduce Bob’s device down to a single question, it’d be this: would you recommend the client to a [good] friend? If the answer is “no,” you probably have another question to ask yourself. Like “why, then, would you keep them on yourself?”

Nothing is more draining than doing work you wish you weren’t. No amount of asshole tax can change that.

Disclosure: Bob’s a client. (the good kind)