Posts tagged fail

Poor treatment

Poor treatment published on 15 Comments on Poor treatment

Can you imagine treating your doctor this way?

Unfortunately, this is how many web developers and software developers are treated regularly by clients.
Due to website development being a pretty new occupation, there are still a lot of people out there that do not understand what goes in to making that cool website, or that awesome online application.

I have personally been on the receiving end of some pretty ridiculous and outright stupid requests by clients.
It is so common, that sites like Clients From Hell are able to exist and be filled with stories which at first seem totally fictional. But they are not.
But go and speak to someone who works in web development and ask them about horror clients. Every one of them will have a story to tell you.

My theory is that because the average person only sees the front end of websites, they have no idea of the coding work and time it takes to create a good web product. They do not get to “look under the hood” and see all the scripts, calls, CSS styles, etc.
If they did, there would be more understanding that this is REAL work, not just a hobby people do on computers in their spare time.
(Also, many “discount” operators such as outsourced development teams & unqualified designers help to perpetuate a myth that this work is cheap & easy to do)

Think about industries where customers have a better understanding of who the end result is produced:
– Customers would not tell a mechanic to throw in free extras just because they are in the engine anyway.
– Clients would not ask an architect to totally redesign a building plan once it is done, by 9am the next day, because their 6yr old son did not like it.
– House painters are not asked to re-paint a house for free, because the colour now looks different when viewed in the morning sun.
– Lawyers are not asked to work on a case for free, just because it may look good in their resume later.

Sadly, elements of all these things exist within the current client-web developer dynamic.
I, for one, hope this changes soon.


When the iceman calls

When the iceman calls published on 4 Comments on When the iceman calls

Superheroes must be the one of the most feared types of people for tech support staff.

They are magnets for having “computer issues” (as I have already covered previously here) and want everything sorted out right away. They are always complaining that the problem has to be fixed immediately, as it is a “matter of life or death”, or “the fate of the world depends on it”, or “a giant robot is about to crush my skull”.

Well boo fricken hoo! Seriously! Either they are too dumb or overpowered to use their computers in the first place, or they are super geniuses always tweaking settings and adding unauthorised custom software. (Yeah, I’m looking at you batman……)

Artists note :
This joke seems so obvious, yet when I researched it*, I was surprised to find this had not been done yet. The closest I could find was this comic, so I thought I had better give it some props.
If you find another version of this gag somewhere, especially with the iceman in it, please add a link in the comments. I would love to see it.

*Ok, I know what you are thinking – yes, I do research things on the google machine. I am all teknological and stuff.

Facebook Policy Maker

Facebook Policy Maker published on 4 Comments on Facebook Policy Maker

The really sad thing is that this comic could easily be mistaken for fact.

It is old news now that facebook is in real trouble and whomever it is over there making the decisions on website changes & policy direction, is in serious need of an old school kick in the ass.
Facebook needs to decide very soon what they are going to do to address the unrest and mistrust that they themselves, have created within their user base.
Perhaps the entire business of facebook has just been one big scam to get data to onsell to advertisers? (or as they phrase it “create the open graph protocol for the web”)

Either that, or we are about to see the most the start of the new way that things work on the web, with facebook blazing the path for others to undoubtedly follow. THEY will tell you what you want, rather than listening to your requests?
Many would argue that some corporations and/or industries have been working this way for many years already.

Personally, I am just waiting to see what happens on May 31st, which is “Quit Facebook Day”. Sites such as QuitFacebookDay.com are encouraging you to Delete Facebook accounts on 31 May 2010, if you are fed up of Facebook and its privacy issues.

Facebook has already announced that their privacy settings system will be overhauled some time in the next few weeks, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg more recently admitting in an email exchange to “a bunch of mistakes”. Will these overhauls actually happen?
Possibly, but I think it will not be in the way that the general public are expecting.

Will the mass deletion of accounts really occur?
Yes, I believe some people will make a display of deleting their facebook accounts, but the QuitFacebookDay site shows only around 15,000 committed to this at the time of writing this post. This is not about 0.03% of the total number of facebook users.
If I were a betting man, I would say that I expect at least 45% of the users that delete their accounts on facebook to be back there again in less than 3 months.

So, I look forward to seeing what will occur. Let’s hope it is truly memorable and positive.

Missing

Missing published on 6 Comments on Missing

How many of these people do you know?

I know too many of these kinds of people and I discover more and more of them online every day.
Abandoned foursquare accounts, half-hearted facebook profiles and twitter accounts that have not been touched since the end of 2009 when twitter was the “next big thing”.

I believe that the average everyday “person on the street” from the age of 25 upwards, still does not really “get” online social media.
They merely partake so they can be a part of the excitement that the news media tells them is occurring.

The internet is already full of abandoned sites, forums and message boards.
They are the online ghost towns just taking up file space and providing virtual rubbish for future generations to clean up in years to come.

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