Solid advice. I shouldn’t have pushed so hard to get heard. Should have just made it landscape (which took minutes) and let it fail.
The trick is balancing that against wanting to be a consultant to them (i.e. somebody who knows what he’s doing and offers viable solutions that they themselves can’t think of) rather than a mindless pair of hands that gets directed by them to throw code at a wall.
Argh, that resonates. My general strategy: speak up briefly on how we should do {x}, and then, when I am not heard, do their thing {y}, which usually fails, since if I speak up in the first place it means I probably know what I'm talking about.
Anyway, they can recognize the failure of {y}. Now it's time to make my suggestion again, not in an asshole way, but rather: "I think we should do {x}" as if it's the first time I said it; or "Let's revisit what you're trying to accomplish here."
The happy story would be that people are abashed at my great wisdom and sorrowful that they did not heed it. More accurate story is that no acknowledgement of anything occurs, but they are more receptive in the moment, and even a bit more receptive in the future. Took a long time to arrive at this, sadly, my great wisdom notwithstanding.
Raising rates seems to help. The more they're paying you, the more they're willing to listen, it seems. Though of course you can never completely escape bad clients.
Do you really want to be a consultant to people who don't value your input? Maybe you can find someone higher up in the organization to discuss your ideas with? They don't need to be your direct point of contact, but it sounds like you do need their buy-in.
The trick is balancing that against wanting to be a consultant to them (i.e. somebody who knows what he’s doing and offers viable solutions that they themselves can’t think of) rather than a mindless pair of hands that gets directed by them to throw code at a wall.