"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

I'm too tired for this crap
August 21, 2009 - 11:18 am

I did look at cats... I did do a bit of shopping... but these things aren't really the point of a vacation, are they?

I didn't go anywhere. I talked about Six Flags... I talked about NYC... I talked about the casino. I did none of them.

In no small part this is due to work. A couple bombs went off, stellar timing. Each day I've had to do some degree of work while supposedly out. The only marginally good thing about this is that I'm largely up to date on emails. Sure, there's still some unread ones and I'm sure other things that need tending, but thanks to the big bomb, I've largely been keep track of things.

Next week should prove interesting. I am to meet a new client I'll be getting... so I'll be out of the office a couple days. I spy'd a new email for a meeting on the following day down in Atlanta. I think I'll need to call in for this. I'm not sure I can get there due to my new client meeting.

I'm actually left to wonder if I'm going to get yanked of my insane client. It's readily apparent to me that I'm note quite up to snuff on things for them. Not a statement one likes to make, but considering I've only done the job for 9isn months, one I'm fine with making. Considering it's a 'sink or swim' sort of deal -- there's no training program or manual or anything like that, I think I've tread the waters well enough for my normal accounts... but I've seen nothing like this mess before and so.. things are rocky.

In my humble opinion, the insanity we have at the moment is largely our own fault... The client says we want X and we say, "We'll look into that..." but the total expectation is that we will do it and our statement is more like a soft yes, "I think we can find a way..."

So you end up with a million little customized one offs and the more you do this, the more they want to do whatever creeps into their heads. The less they care about how we normally handle things... we just customize and customize and customize.

Don't get me wrong, you need to meet a client's need... but there's a difference between needs and wants, no?

A good partner will work to meet any reasonable request.. but at the same time, the other half of the partnership is realizing that not all requests can be (or should be) met.

It's rather like they have a meeting and decide X, Y, and Z internally -- after some sort of debate and process... and they simply expect what ever they decided in the vacuum (as in with us to say what we can/can't do) will simply be done.

For example, these fuckers have contracts setup with various little groups all over the damn place. These contracts have various termination notices like 90 days or 60 days... well they are terminating outside of that agreement and when the group pushes back... the solution is that we can just pay claim based on these contracts.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

It's not so simple to just snap ones fingers and do this... why the fuck would you not terminate contracts in accordance with the contracts -- in other words do this in a rational way?

It's the sort of crap that sucks up a lot of time on our side which means we've less time for what are pressing matters that we really should be focused on. The client doesn't much care because they say, "Go do this..." and that's the end of it for them. They are off to some new project to create more crap for us to deal with.

Frustrates the hell out of me. I'm way to lacking in experience to properly throw up the brakes at somethings... because I really don't know what we can/can't do. Far too many times I need to say, "Let's take that away..." On the flip side, I'm learning tons about things so should another client ever want to go down these paths, I can give proper feedback on my current experience.

Unless, of course, I get fired over this or demoted in some fashion.

Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that over this week. I've no doubt that if I was without Loca.. I'd have a very different plan in motion than what I have today. How sad is that? My cat is, in a way, dictating what I'm doing. I'm torn on if this is good or bad... or just more bizarre bullshit from my brain.

And now... I think I'll go look at the last email of the longest chain I've not yet read.