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Yeah, so I haven't posted in a while. I moved and internet has been... finicky at the best of times. On the bright side, that means I've been storing up some lovely stories for you guys. I've been getting bitchier lately... think I could use a vacation.
T - Taboo! Be warned, I bite.
SC - I swear they breed like rabbits...
I can haz interwebz?
SC: So yeah, you know those things on the computer? The ones on the nets? I want one.
Customer sounds like he's elderly; this is probably not going to end well.
T: A website, sir?
SC: That's just the one page though, isn't it? (sounds very concerned)
T: Well, a website can have multiple pages in it.
SC: No, no! I have lots of photos to show my children and they won't all fit on my screen when I hold them up.
T: We can make a gallery so that your children can click on smaller versions of the photos to look at the full size ones--
SC: NO! I don't want them to miss any of them. They have to all be full size. (sighs very deliberately) I guess I need a whole internet.
T: ..... um, well we can just make you a multiple page website and it'll do exactly what you're asking about--
SC: I need an INTERNET! Obviously you don't know what you're doing. Find me someone who can help me.
T: Call Al Gore. (click)
Hey, can you ___?
SC: Hey, can you make a website for my chihuahua/kitten/parrot/broom? It'll be totally rad.
Never use that word in my presence again. Especially not when you are telling me that you want pictures of your puppy surrounded by flying pink words and animated glitter. Especially when you dare to ask me to put a looping midi file of your dog barking and disable any way that someone could turn it off or mute their computer. I am not MySpace. I would rather gnaw on the remnants of my packing boxes for nourishment than build this atrocity for you, regardless of how much money you are offering me.
I hate this pitch.
SC: We have this great idea for a completely new type of website (read: exactly like Facebook) and it needs logins and forums and RSS feeds and a shopping service like Amazon! We can't pay you yet, and don't even have a name for our company or any idea what RSS actually is, but we'll pay you in stock when we're millionaires, but only if you agree to do this with no contract!
Every day. I get a call or email like this every. fucking. day.
Sometimes they vaguely describe what stock is and ask me what the word for it is. Most of them, I'm not sure they even know what stock means.
Wait, why?
SC: We're a small business and we'd like you to build a very simple, streamlined website for us. It only requires the main page and five sub pages. I've already sent you the layout we want and all of the text content.
T: (pulls it up on the computer) Oh, I see. This all looks good. Just one thing, you already sent me the text but you have notes about photos here. Do you already have those, and if so can you send them to me? If not, are you in contact with a photographer or do you need me to find stock photography options for you to purchase?
SC: We have a photographer, P, but she's out of the country until (date) and won't be taking the photos until after she returns. However, we need you to get the full site together, ready to launch with all of the photos by (two weeks before date). So we need you to make the photos instead. (Yes. He said make.)
(cue sound of record scratching)
Okay, I know P, and P is an amazing photographer. I don't know her rates offhand, but she's worked for National Geographic and has a full time job right now, so you can bet her rate for some quick side job is pretty high for her to even bother with it. So basically this guy just admitted that he threw away what was certainly a couple thousand dollars because he knew when he first hired her that the timing wouldn't work, but paid her anyway and then wasn't even going to use her work and was willing to ask someone who isn't even a professional photographer to just randomly throw something together.
I just --- WHAT?
My brain hurts.
It's not real!
SC: Oh, and don't use any blue on this. Blue isn't a real color, you know.
T: Er...
SC: The sky is blue but there's nothing really there. If there was something there, you would feel it, so it's all empty! Blue is a lie! I don't want fake colors on my site, people will think we're liars!
I wasn't aware that I was suddenly in the fucking Matrix.
rageragerage
T: Here's your finished illustration. Your final total--
SC: Oh, I've decided not to pay you. You get to have fun doing all of that drawing stuff, I don't want to pay you if you're going to enjoy it.
T: GRRRRRAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHH~~~~
T - Taboo! Be warned, I bite.
SC - I swear they breed like rabbits...
I can haz interwebz?
SC: So yeah, you know those things on the computer? The ones on the nets? I want one.
Customer sounds like he's elderly; this is probably not going to end well.
T: A website, sir?
SC: That's just the one page though, isn't it? (sounds very concerned)
T: Well, a website can have multiple pages in it.
SC: No, no! I have lots of photos to show my children and they won't all fit on my screen when I hold them up.
T: We can make a gallery so that your children can click on smaller versions of the photos to look at the full size ones--
SC: NO! I don't want them to miss any of them. They have to all be full size. (sighs very deliberately) I guess I need a whole internet.
T: ..... um, well we can just make you a multiple page website and it'll do exactly what you're asking about--
SC: I need an INTERNET! Obviously you don't know what you're doing. Find me someone who can help me.
T: Call Al Gore. (click)
Hey, can you ___?
SC: Hey, can you make a website for my chihuahua/kitten/parrot/broom? It'll be totally rad.
Never use that word in my presence again. Especially not when you are telling me that you want pictures of your puppy surrounded by flying pink words and animated glitter. Especially when you dare to ask me to put a looping midi file of your dog barking and disable any way that someone could turn it off or mute their computer. I am not MySpace. I would rather gnaw on the remnants of my packing boxes for nourishment than build this atrocity for you, regardless of how much money you are offering me.
I hate this pitch.
SC: We have this great idea for a completely new type of website (read: exactly like Facebook) and it needs logins and forums and RSS feeds and a shopping service like Amazon! We can't pay you yet, and don't even have a name for our company or any idea what RSS actually is, but we'll pay you in stock when we're millionaires, but only if you agree to do this with no contract!
Every day. I get a call or email like this every. fucking. day.
Sometimes they vaguely describe what stock is and ask me what the word for it is. Most of them, I'm not sure they even know what stock means.
Wait, why?
SC: We're a small business and we'd like you to build a very simple, streamlined website for us. It only requires the main page and five sub pages. I've already sent you the layout we want and all of the text content.
T: (pulls it up on the computer) Oh, I see. This all looks good. Just one thing, you already sent me the text but you have notes about photos here. Do you already have those, and if so can you send them to me? If not, are you in contact with a photographer or do you need me to find stock photography options for you to purchase?
SC: We have a photographer, P, but she's out of the country until (date) and won't be taking the photos until after she returns. However, we need you to get the full site together, ready to launch with all of the photos by (two weeks before date). So we need you to make the photos instead. (Yes. He said make.)
(cue sound of record scratching)
Okay, I know P, and P is an amazing photographer. I don't know her rates offhand, but she's worked for National Geographic and has a full time job right now, so you can bet her rate for some quick side job is pretty high for her to even bother with it. So basically this guy just admitted that he threw away what was certainly a couple thousand dollars because he knew when he first hired her that the timing wouldn't work, but paid her anyway and then wasn't even going to use her work and was willing to ask someone who isn't even a professional photographer to just randomly throw something together.
I just --- WHAT?
My brain hurts.It's not real!
SC: Oh, and don't use any blue on this. Blue isn't a real color, you know.
T: Er...
SC: The sky is blue but there's nothing really there. If there was something there, you would feel it, so it's all empty! Blue is a lie! I don't want fake colors on my site, people will think we're liars!
I wasn't aware that I was suddenly in the fucking Matrix.
rageragerage
T: Here's your finished illustration. Your final total--
SC: Oh, I've decided not to pay you. You get to have fun doing all of that drawing stuff, I don't want to pay you if you're going to enjoy it.
T: GRRRRRAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHH~~~~
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