I just need to rant a little bit. In my job, we work with many different clients. Some of them want us to use their templates, style guides, and procedures. Okay. Others are okay if we use our own. Also okay.
What drives me mad is when the client wants us to use their template, and it's shite. Well, in some cases it's not shite, it's just not well designed. And then the client rants if we try to improve it. And then rants if we don't. And people on my internal team rant if i mention that the template lacks, but the same ones who say how much time i have to work on the project with the template don't allow for the actual time it takes me to fix the bloody thing so it doesn't get corrupted or look like someone who didn't give a rat's ass was doing the work.
Now, if this particular client template, which has been the impetus for the current rant, were from a client that was a small start-up or an 8-year-old just learning how to use the software, i wouldn't say too much. In fact, in the former case, i've been known to have a chat with the client directly and offer to use our template which is similar but a bit more user friendly. Most are relieved and some have openly said they knew their template was crap. Could i tweak things a bit so it looks more like what they want, but not so they have to pay more money? Sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes no because it really does depend on the amount of work involved. I don't work with children, so have not yet had to contend with the 8-year-old, although the way some folks whinge, you wouldn't know they weren't kids, except their voices have changed.
No, this particular client is a huge company, one that probably spends more in paper clips than i get paid in a year. Don't you think that such a large place would have a better than crappy template?
sigh.
I have decided i'm going to conclude my work day, shut down the computer, and commence to decorating the Christmas tree. All the cats have sniffed at it, JoJo was happy to sit under it today but gave me a look as if to say, "Where's the tree skirt?"
Phoebe right now is happy cleaning herself before the wood stove, and Jim is outside. So far he hasn't tried climbing the tree. Once it's adorned with the lights and shiny, hanging objects, though, we'll see what happens. I think this year i shall use all nonbreakable ornaments. Just in case.
Things may look better in the morning, after Jim has climbed the tree.
ReplyDeleteThings do look better, Joanne! Jim has not yet climbed the tree, but he did want to help me with the lights.
DeleteDon't cats enjoy climbing trees? Especially trees covered in baubles!
ReplyDeleteCro, that's my thinking. Hence the unbreakable baubles.
DeleteBig Breaths, Megan (Yeth and I'm only thixteen!)
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't so much clients who gave me headaches, it was Head Office. Those bastards would screw up and I'd have the client frothing with righteous indignation all over me and bloody Head Office would expect ME to LIE to the client to cover THEIR arses.
I recall one memorable occasion when we realised that the terminations we had supplied so that the client could connect his cables to our switch gear were the wrong size. The Commissioning Engineer told me that if we bodged it, we risked blowing up the switch gear (worth about half a million dollars) and anyone who has seen exploding switchgear will know it is an awesome sight and will kill anyone inside oe near it. So I refused to go live. The client went loopy and rang my boss who told me that unless I went live, he would sack me. I tried to explain. Then I asked for it in writing. My boss immediately sent me an email. The Commissioning Engineer refused to sign off on the installation (a 30 MW power plant). I rang my boss and told him. He told me to go live anyway. I explained it one more time to the client and then told him that if I didn't manage to get the right terminations and go live within 24 hours, I would hand him my resignation for him to give to my boss.
Do you know what he said? 'Have you got any cold beers on site?' 'Sure I said' 'Come on then, since we have to wait 24 hours, we might as well have a few!'
This is what my Head Office could never grasp, you win more kudos with the client and their confidence if you tell them the truth if you screw up.
No wonder after three years with that company I had a heart attack in the site office.
And Tom, this is the reason they didn't keep me in management. I did have a short stint where i was asked to manage a work group. The directive from the VP was this, "Megan, this group is fucked up, which fucks up the whole process, and i know you can fix it."
DeleteI did, but my immediate boss changed as a result of my new job to a woman who wanted her friend to have the job i was given, so she, one of the more passive-aggressive people i've met, did everything she could to get me to fail. Only she wasn't successful, and i was. Because i didn't care who you were or how educated, either you could do the work (pass) or couldn't (fail). When i instituted a workflow practice to increase efficiency, i called a meeting and told everyone who interacted with our work group so they would understand how we were going to do things. All nodded blithely, and paid lip service. Some were bitterly surprised when they discovered i was adhering to my workflow practice, and they whinged because now they were going to be late with their projects. I shrugged, told them that i sent out a weekly email like a newsletter letting everyone know what projects we were working on, and if they have need of our workgroup to let me know so i can schedule accordingly. In one particularly satisfying instance, the whingiest of the bunch who insisted that this particular project HAD to go ahead of the others, was heartily dismayed when she saw that the projects she'd supplant were also other projects of hers. "I don't care which project we do first, quite frankly, " i told her. "You just let me know which of your projects goes to the end of the line, and we'll move things accordingly."
Once the group was running smoothly, passive-aggressive boss came to me saying that i was no longer needed in my position as everything was now all right. She booted me back to my previous department, and gave her friend my job. She also did everything she could to show how great her friend was in the job.
I still have the same job to which i was booted back, and actually really like my job for the most part. It's the job i had when the VP asked me to take over running this other work group. The department i was asked to run has since been disbanded because of company restructure.
At least in my case if things go wrong, documents blow up instead of buildings. That's scary.
I feel for you. In my business, there is nothing worse than an unqualified 'project manager'.
ReplyDeleteTom, that's just it. Some of the PMs agree to things of which they have little understanding and they don't wish to be enlightened.
DeleteI am lucky that I work for a small practice. My partner, however, works for a large city school district that is fraught with idiocy. Their latest mess: they offered full paid sabbaticals to 2 people. My partner, who is going to India on a Fulbright, will have to give up four months pay to do it. So, she applied for the sabbatical on the premise that she would tie her work in with her students to skype and work with a counter school in India. They didn't grant her the sabbatical, said that it was a matter of geography. They wanted to keep the money in the U.S. One of the people who got the sabbatica? She wanted to study wild flowers in Colorado. In the Winter. And one of the HR committee deciding? Her best friend.
ReplyDeleteAnd our dog went after the tree once. It fell over and scared him so badly that he now steers clear of it.
Maria, i have found in smaller companies there is less room for incompetency to hide. I think that's why when my company was much, much smaller, we were far more efficient. Larger companies tend to create hiding places just by virtue of size. For all i know, somebody's loved one created the crappy template, and everyone at the client's company who wants to keep their job remains stumm.
DeleteI once had a friend who made TV Commercials. He'd make the most fantastic ads only to find the client complaining about 'this bit' or 'that bit' - until he realised that what they were doing was trying in some way to be part of the 'creative process', even though they hadn't got a clue what they were talking about. He solved it by making fantastic ads with at least one 'God awful' bit in it. Even the dumbest clients would spot the god awful bit and ask for it to be removed. That way everyone ended up happy.
ReplyDeleteRory, great to see you back in Blogland! You've been missed.
DeleteYou're right about the creative process. I've had clients ask me to do rewrites, and it's akin to what you mentioned. When i use their wording exactly, they sometimes see it for the rubbish it is, and very often change it back to what i had.