...and life goes on

Most of you who still come here are my close friends, pals, buddies, or relatives (MOM). Anyways, I thought I would announce it to everyone else that the rumors are true John Dewey no longer has a place of employment. While I really did enjoy my job towards the end, I can't say that I am too terribly upset. Sure there is the money issues, and the hassle of finding a new job. But I also found some things to be terribly wrong at my last job.

The first complaint I have deals with the fact that in business "The customer is always right." Well, as Ben Affleck once said in Mallrats "The Customer is always an asshole!" and I couldn't agree more. I mean how is the customer RIGHT when they have signed their name not only once during the process, but twice stating that they APPROVED the plan for the work to be done and second the actual work that was done the way they wanted. Then come back and say, "no you guys missed the ball completely." Are you kidding me? How is this my fault? Well, I guess that any several other questions I have will never be answered, but I really wish they were. The one thing at work that I will never be is a kiss ass, it just goes against my nature. If I see that I am in the wrong, or there is a better way of doing things then yeah I'll admit that, but just doing things not the way you want to just to appease someone even if you don't think it is the right way to do them is just plain stupid.

The second complain or issue I had was while the customer was always right, the customer was somehow wrong a lot of the time. They were wrong mainly in expecting things to be done in a timely manner. Typically a company would want to make sure they stayed on time and kept the customers as happy as possible. Somehow the company I worked for kept people happy enough, but still screwed people over on a daily basis. It was quite an amazing thing to watch. I mean for example during the graphics phase a client would submit their changes and it should typically take 2-2.5 weeks, which I feel is long in itself, but that is an issue for another time. Anyways, while it should have taken 2 weeks it typically ended up taking 2-4. Obviously by week 3 the client would want to know where the hell his work was. It was my job to make sure I kept him notified of what was happening the entire time. Okay well your graphics are scheduled _____ I will let you know when they are finished. Come the time they were scheduled I would come to find out they got bumped, so I'd have to figure out a reason that they were bumped, typically due to the client being slow on some sort of deliverable whether it be returning the signed plan or getting me their logo file or whatever. Anyway, real bullshit. Why should we delay their project just because they delayed us? Where are we going? Aren't they the paying customer? Should it really matter that they couldn't get us a logo file for 2 and because of that they now have to wait 4 weeks for graphics. What kind of ass backwards logic is that. Well that is the logic of "setting expectations." And to me it is just bad business. I am just amazing at how many clients pay so much money for crap service. I mean the ones that spend the most get great service for the most part, but if you are a smaller business laying down an equal share of your earnings as a larger business well tough because you don't mean much. The owns always said it was those smaller businesses that made the company successful which I wouldn't disagree with, but I would say I don't get why those business kept coming back.

On my last day of work about 15 minutes before getting laid off I got an email from an extremely angry client. Basically ranting on how the service at my company had gone downhill the past year or so. He mentioned how it seemed like we forgot about the clients we already have and only cared about newer larger clients. I don't think I can disagree with that. This client was a bit upset with me for not getting back to him from an email he sent to me Friday asking for a timeline of when I thought his website could go live. Since this decision wasn't really up to me I had to depend on sending emails to a coworker and then waiting for an answer. I sent three emails and received no help whatsoever. Then of course the client went off. I don't get a company that doesn't want to help one another with issues, but instead just want to point the blame of who's fault everything is. Well, obviously this one was going to be my fault again because I was "the manager" and I didn't do everything I could do to get the answer for the client. Because really 3 emails which you know the person read isn't enough. You should really confront the person and if that doesn't work perhaps kidnap their wife and children and hold them for ransom to see if that can get you an answer.

Okay - That is enough for one day about that job. Obviously, there were some things that got me a little riled up. Overall though I really did like most of the people I worked with. I will miss them and I hope to do lunch with them every now and again, or at least until I get another job and become way more sucessful then them. Then I probably want to be seen with any of them or they will lower my street cred. ya know?