Have you ever reached that point where you are ready to completely throw your arms up and give a big focker you to a customer over a paid project?
Let me tell ya ppl I’m so focking there right now. Long story short and spoken in general terms to not give away the project or ppl involved here is the recap of the story….
I took on a project which involved some pretty good money. Not as much money as the field usually sees for this type of project but good money none the less. From the beginning it’s been hell on a dial up connection sort of fock up the ass-o with no vass-o type ordeal.
Normally when a project is brought to me the customer has all of their details ready to go into the project. All that is required of me is to get their pre-defined content together in a manner that is functional and pleases the customer.
I am not the customer’s business partner. I am not the customer’s personal think tank. I do not care if the customer is a good person or highly thought of. I further do not care one tiny bit what type of person some one else thinks this customer is. Put simply give me your ideas and the information you want completed, pay my starting deposit, approve my work, allow me to get it done, approve the project completeness, and finally pay me to rest of the $$. All documents - images - needed files etc should be ready b4 I touch one line of code. What is so damn hard to understand about this!?!
I really am at a loss as to how a customer can expect me to give freely of my time and ideas at no cost. My parent’s company retains multiple third parties that work just as I do on billable time to complete a job. Such as lawyers for example.. If you email a lawyer you better believe he is charging you billable time to not only read the email but to consider it and then finally answer it. Billable time is charged for each action or thought process put into your project.
Normally I charge for all email and phone correspondence involved in a project beyond the first one or two emails to provide the information to me. I have so NOT charged this customer any where near the amount of time they should be paying. I have also not charged for the 2+ hour conference calls that I must endure in order for them to repeat everything they’ve already said by email. This previous statement also applies for further conference calls where I must repeate explanations continually that I have already explained via email multiple times.
When I ask for information please reply with the answers or reply with, “Sorry I don’t have an answer I will give you the answer on {insert date here}.” Don’t ignore my requests for days even weeks then when you finally email me instead of providing the answers I asked for change the thing all together instead of providing the original answers I needed to finish it up.
What really burns my ass is being lied to. I state my terms up front and make them clear. I’m a cash and carry person. Like every coder on the planet you pay me, I do the work, you make final payment, and then I hand over the code I’ve written. Easy as pie - eazy peazy man! Don’t tell me you have sent something then DAYS later tell me that you are getting ready to send it the next day.
Um hello!! WTF why did you tell me you sent it only to now after I’m counting on having it tell me that you haven’t sent it yet? Further more a BIG HUGE fock you goes out to you for not even telling me why you lied and haven’t sent it yet.
Then another ordeal I have with any project is middle men. Say you tell a customer about my services and would like a little something out of the deal for yourself. Hey that’s how the world works right? No problem as long as I get what is coming to me no big deal. BUT…….. Make sure your cut is reasonable to the amount of work you are putting into the project. I don’t recall anyone sitting next to me while I chain smoked 2+ packs of squares a day for 16+ hour days for weeks to code the project with exception of Katy whom does everything right along with me.
Then on top of all this crap I put my heart and hard work into other projects with my partners only to have people completely disregard my terms of my work.
Add to this I have taken a short leave of absence from my day job to work on these projects and without the requested information I need I can not complete them. Resulting in not being able to get back to work until I do have the info. Because heaven focking help us all if I get tired of waiting and go back to work only to be sent out of town and not be here to receive that ever important email without the answers I needed to finish up. But instead when that email finally comes it has a list of a million changes to the project which render my time and work on the project mute and in need of replacement.
I’m tired! I want this project done!! End of story!! I want to move on with my life and work to get back to some sense of normal.
So in closing of the long winded never ending rant I begin praying.. I pray to all the gods and goddesses I have relation with to help me get this project finished asap. That includes the football gods I pray to for a great Cowboys or Titans game, the internet gods to allow shit to work right on the first attempt, the patron saint of law enforcement and fire fighters to bring James & Terry home safely on each call they make, the vinyl gods to allow me to find kick ass lps for cheap prices, the PMS gods for keeping me from killing or seriously hurting others during my visit on the white pony, Jesus to bring my family home safe each time they leave the house and another prayer to him to thank him for the life he has given us. Not to excludeBuddha , Jesus, and every other god you can think of in existence. Please for the love of my sanity make this focking project over with!!
OMG I’ve really gone on and on and probably said way too much. But ya know what FUCK em if they find this blog and don’t like what they read I don’t care at this point. If by chance my customers are reading this then sorry to publicly bitch about you but at least I didn’t name you!!! Maybe now you will get your shit together b4 I walk away and leave you high and dry without the code I’ve written.. Think about it..
– A Very Pissed Off Bitch
