Championable | Love, parenting, politics.

Begin.

A client calls, from a division of a big ad agency, says she nees a Java expert to come fix a problem. I say, cool, what’s the problem? She says, it’s our website. I say, Java? Are you sure you don’t mean JavaScript?

She puts me on hold.

She gets back on. Yes. JavaScript. I say: cool. Could you tell me what’s up? She says the page isn’t looking the same in different browsers. I say: cool, how come you know it’s JavaScript?

She puts me on hold.

She comes back. Can I have my technical expert call you, she asks? Cool, I say.

She hangs up.

She calls back with her tech guy on the phone.

I say: Hey, how’s the problem expressing itself that keys you to the fact that it’s JavaScript? He says, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any JavaScript. I say: cool, so what’s the problem. It doesn’t look right, he says. I don’t know. I ask if he can send me the files.

They hang up as the klaxons in my head continue sounding.

I think, okay. This is a job that is guaranteed to be bigger or different or stranger than it appears. It’s a setup for failure. It’s a client we’ve been trying to land for a while. I think, I’ll do it myself. If it doesn’t work out, we don’t charge them. If it works out, we charge them. Risk nothing, learn something. Why not. I could use the distraction.

They tech guy calls back and tells me to go to a web page.

It’s a small graphic with a black background surrounding. I say, what’s the problem? He says, we want the black eliminated. I say, cool, but if you don’t declare a color, it’ll just use a default. He says no, we want this little picture to fill up the whole page. I say cool, but scaled is going to look really bad, because you rasterized the type as part of the image when it could’ve been rendered by the browser. He says, what? I say, I’m not sure exactly what you want to do with the images I’m seeing. He says, oh, I’ll find out.

He hangs up.

They call me back and now they art director is on the phone. It’s just a page that says under construction, he says, no big deal, I just want the page to know what size the screen is on and fill up the entire screen no matter how big it is. I say, cool, but there are dozens of resolutions across platforms, he says oh, well, tell me how many and I’ll send them to you. I ask for the core files they used to do the page they have up now.

They hang up.

They send the files and they are shockingly inept. This is a 200-person part of a multi-thousand-person firm. Smeary photoshop, obvious typos, bad use of basic technology. Layers which should have remained layers are flattened.

I write to say that maybe they should just do one version with a background that scales to any size monitor. The tech guy writes me back to say okay.

My employee asks to do the job.

As she’s doing it, I clearly, emphatically, and explicitly say, don’t use any overlapping background, because when the browser window changes size, you’re going to see all this moving asphalt underneath a square of completely stationery asphalt. Much of our conversation is about transparency, and why it’s essential for this project.

She has her own ideas. Does it her own way. Doesn’t listen. Hands me a bunch of files with large, rectangular blocks of background copied onto them. They are completely unusable. Uncool, I think.

At five o’clock, she leaves for the day. I start the project over. Call my friend, who helps me with advice and feedback.

A couple of hours later, I’ve asked the client to give me some feedback on the different versions of the same font, the way I’ve had to extend graphics to compensate for the larger backgrounds, etc.

They’ve gone home. I get a text message from the tech guy saying so, and that he is leaving too. Cool, I say, but I was hoping for some feedback since this is due first thing in the am, and I asked for feedback a half-hour before anyone left. He says, well, just send everything and thanks bye!

I leave the office. I get on the train. My friend sends me one more change. I’m going to make it now.

End.

Love to all. Even you, the CEO who likes things shiny.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 7:17 pm and is filed under Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.