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.

I think I’ll just get this out of the way and move on.

I can’t really write about it presently, but it turns out that my understanding of how things were going at my company were seriously flawed.  From an operational and planning perspective, they were flawed at a very basic level. This is a massive ego hit, as I’m someone who really takes pride in being able to read people. Nothing catastrophic happened, and I don’t believe anything is going to.  Although, who knows what the fuck THAT means, since I didn’t see the initial situation coming in the first place.

I’m not going to write about it further until it’s completely resolved, which won’t be for some time.  I just had to put something up here so I can move on to other things. It’s very difficult not to write more, even abstractly.  But knowing when and where to express myself is, I guess, part of growing up.

Love to all.  Even you, the Condi Rice lookalike with the non-stop Samsung.

At 5:22am today, I sustained a tactical nuclear strike to my work life, and to my confidence about own world-awareness.

I didn’t see it coming; I had no clue at all.

I’ll write about it when it’s over.

Love to all. Even you.

I’m writing this post, and I’m publishing it when my train is about to pull in. Come hell or high water, this fucker is going online.

First: I just want to say for the record that it’s the married women that are dangerous. But when it comes to HOW dangerous, I’m going to say “not very.” Lust is a big, bad motherfucker, but you really have to engage it in order for it to be threatening in any way. This is different than being a wee bit flirty. Now, if I was to play “force field” with someone, well, THAT would lead to some serious danger.

Second: PostFix kicked the shit out of me tonight. What email server rejects INCOMING email with a “relaying denied” error? What the FUCK?

Third: My business, after getting on its feet, is about to go through some serious changes. For once, it’s not really my fault. My beloved recruiter is going through a variety of personal issues, and she’s decided to move to… move to… Buffalo.

Now, everyone I know who has BEEN to Buffalo keeps saying, “What the FUCK?” I don’t get it either. Somehow, the fact that it’s 2.5 hours from her family in Toronto is one of the deciding factors.

My recruiter rocks. She’s a great person, fabulous at her job, smart, driven, etc. So, well, we’re going to try acting like we live in 2008, and let her telecommute. Broadband + VOIP = full-time job placement from home. She’s something of a writer/recluse (in a good way), so this appeals to her a lot. It worries me, but she says it’s ideal.

We’re giving it 60 days.

Personally, I think she’s doing things way too quickly and without enough forethought, but it’s not my place to say at this point… I know this because I asked if she wanted my personal or professional opinion… and she said “professional only.” Things were too intense, she said, for her to get any more opinions.

I’m afraid her family isn’t doing right by her, but I respect her request.

Fourth: Nobody really stands up to Maggie’s Dad. God bless the man, but he just doesn’t listen to ANYONE. Don’t get me wrong… he’s a decent guy and I love him, but he just doesn’t take other people into account on an emotional level. In fact, Maggie was reduced to tears at one point simply because he ignores her. I lost it with him once, when he refused not to cut up my youngest’s dinner WHILE I WAS TELLING HIM NOT TO, causing my youngest to cry, causing my Father-in-Law to say “I can’t keep up with your rules,” which, in turn, cause me to say: “NO. There were no rules. You just didn’t LISTEN.”

I said this three times, until I was sure he heard me.

Fifth: I feel like every time I call home, people are too busy to talk to me.

Sixth: I feel like I’m being ignored, when it comes to certain parental decisions about supervising the kids. I vaguely understand this, but I strongly, strongly disagree.

Seventh: My to-do list didn’t get shorter from beginning of the day to the end.

Eighth: My train is about to arrive.

Love to all. Even you, the lady who is clearly redirecting her embarrassment about a financial situation into self-righteousness about a company policy violation.

After sending my final responses to the Fakey-Fakey-Fakey guy at a potential new client, the assistant to the CEO wrote to ask if I could call at my earliest convenience after my return on the 28th.

Fascinating.  Maybe they realized that their new hire was something of a Fakey-Fakey-Fakey guy.

Love to all. Even you, tonight’s pitcher for the Port St. Lucie Mets.

This is a note I had to send from Florida. It’s an amazing example of someone talking VaporSpeak because they’re afraid of being exposed as average.

* * *

Dear [Soon-to-be-ex-Client],

My office just told me you called… I mentioned in my last email that I’m 1000 miles away from NYC, and you got the autoresponder when you wrote me, so I’m not sure why you called the office looking for me…

Anyway, I’m taking the time to respond because of how much effort my staff put into this.

At this point, if you choose to hire any of our people, you are welcome to do so via my company on a paid, unguaranteed, trial basis. I think you’ll see the reasoning in the responses below. Frankly, when I believe my people are being set up to fail, there’s nothing else to do. I tried to find examples of your work (since you did not give us any), and the only thing I came up with was your other company and your somewhat pornographic (and archived) MySpace page.

So honestly, I’m not sure what’s going on here. For the record, responses follow your answers.

Our Question: What was the “digital signature” you wrote in on the first form? It didn’t appear to be a digital signature of a kind Acrobat could recognize or we could certify, so I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything.
Your answer: It allowed me to E-mail the form without printing and scanning. I however filed a new one with Palmer that is ink signed.
Our response: Since you claim to be an expert in the digital realm, you should clearly know that the “digital signature” you sent was not legal, and if we accidentally accepted it, we would be operating under terms that weren’t clearly enforceable (although they do show intent).

Our question: Was the list of links you sent Palmer a list of sites completely designed and executed by [Your Company], or was it more of a “mood board” list?
Your answer: It is a list of progressive site I’ve come across, and best examples of who we are looking for in a interactive freelance designer.
Our response: Understood. Some examples of [your company’s] work might have been helpful. And you repeatedly referred to them as “my links” and “our links.”

Our Question: Why doesn’t [your company] have a website? (I ask this because you were very concerned about [one of my candidate’s] reel being old – happily, she’s been working at [three rocking shops] and elsewhere over the last few years – and the only online info on [your company’s] work I can find is the splash page at [your domain].
Your Answer: Yes [your company] is only currently splash page, we have had bad experiences with people directly stealing our creative verbatim so we opted to take down our work. We also do not pitch clients though websites so we have no need to show our work there.
Our response: [Your company] has never had a website, at either this domain or the one listed in the Redbooks directory… at least according to archive.org. Perhaps archive.org is mistaken. Regardless, not publishing the work as [YOUR COMPANY’S] does not make it unstealable, it just makes it unstealable from [YOUR COMPANY’S] WEBSITE… unless you never show your work to the public, which I’m assuming you do.

Our question: It would be exceptionally helpful to know why you were concerned with the font choices of the samples on one of the sample’s of someone being submitted as a developer… the developer has literally no say in these issues, so I’m confused about this. A developer who insists on making font choices would be terminated (and properly so).
Your answer: I agree font is always the design choice of the creative and not the developer, but when it comes to the font choice and development of they personal work we look for a specific aesthetic, which will translate into complete understanding and not simple execution.
Our response: Your answer translates into a core misunderstanding of the roles people play in agencies. If you’re looking for us to judge the aesthetic of people who are specifically not being asked to play any aesthetic role whatsoever, then you are setting us up to fail particularly when we do an excellent job. If you were asking us to judge their code, that’s another kettle of fish.

Our question: Could you give us some details on the type of IA you are looking for? Some IA gigs are more User Experience oriented, some are data structure and management, others are simply for clarifying the flow of things as a user moves from place to place.
Your answer: We look to build metecognative Information Architecture and intuitive design to result in an effective positive UE. The navigation should be dynamic fast and seamless.
Our response: This is just a non-answer, AND it’s misspelled. Obviously, any user experience design requires metacognition. I mean, that’s the whole point behind usability and experience work. However, you didn’t really answer the question anyway.

Our question (modified by you): ActionScript Devs: AS3? AS2?
Your answer: Yes knowledge of both.
Our reponse: Without detail, this is totally unhelpful.

Our question (modified by you): Any data integration/external sources?
Your answer: Yes would be great addition do you have software developers for mobile iPhone and BB, also if we can build more flexible e-commerce engine. ALso OPen GL and C++, Paper vision, and the mergence between Maya + CODE.
Our response: Adding C++ to a Flash job, along with directly writing against an Open GL API, indicates that your simply casting a very, very, very wide net, as opposed to looking for specific people.

Our question (modified by you): Tween-class animation?
Your answer: Sure, more interested in full screen HD flash containers, that also work for onscreen presentations through local servers and online.
Our response: Your answer has nothing to do with whether or not elements are animated in the timeline or in code.

Our question: In what part of Flash development do you need them to be utterly fantastic? (Toughness bonus: the answer can’t be “all.”)
Your answer: Let me preface by saying we are looking of the top one percent of flash developers, the kids that studied with John Meada and Joakim Sauter. We are looking for the next generation of programing.
Our response: If you’re going to drop names, you should spell them correctly (both were wrong). Regardless, this is another non-answer, providing no helpful data whatsoever, except that you are rejecting all candidates except those who took certain UCLA courses. The “next generation of programming” is another common buzzword for non-defined goals.

Our question: You still want to interview candidates with whom you had issues, as a “capabilities interview.” What questions are you intending to ask them? If you tell us, instead of waiting to ask them, we can make sure that the candidates we submit to you have what you need. Please be as specific as you’d like with your answer to this. The more detail, the better.
Your answer: Yes we can, I would never want to pass judgement based on a website alone, but we are very clear when we say we are looking for a very specific type, if you feel this will be a waste of their time then that’s your call.

Our response: Clearly it’s a waste of time for our candidates, because you haven’t remotely defined your needs.
Your comment: We are looking to create the new experience in interactive, If you are trying to place people who just want to do what their told and collect their check then maybe this is not the place for you to place people.
Our response: Okay, if we come across people who won’t listen to what they are told, we’ll be sure to send them your way. Until then, I think we’ll stick to people who can operate within parameters. For some reason, you think that clarity equals a “lack of ingenuity.” And you want to operate “outside the paradigm,” except as defined by Mr. Sauter and Mr. Maeda. Also: ”A new experience in interactive” is something we hear almost daily.

Your comment: Again this is your choice, we want to fill the positions as fast as possible, but we will not compromise when it comes to the quality of our work or the quality of the people who work with us.
Our response: Agreed in full. Exposing our people to a set of completely undefined goals is unfair to them.

* * *

Love to all. Even you, the above mentioned fakey-fakey-fakey guy.

Sometimes the consecutive, random snippets of disparate NYC cell phone conversations can seem really profound.

Do you mind a little bloggus-catch-u-uppus?  Ready?  Go.

To those of you speedy enough to see my post-unpost of my Lyme Disease freakout, it’s no longer certain that I have Lyme disease, and I feel like a complete idiot for completely misinterpreting the situation.

Um.  Okay.  So, like, I had a huge band-aid on the first day (and only the first day) that I got that tick bite, and three days later the very very edges of where the band-aid were  were red, and I forgot that I had even HAD the band-aid on, so between the infected tick bit and .  For those of you who didn’t see it… um… LOOK!  A UNICORN!

Anyway.

I spent from 5 to 10pm last night laying down “Flor” carpet, which is pretty easy except for the 45 tiles I had to measure and trim.  That part sucked.  But I took my time and did it right. I thought I’d get the whole office done tonight, but I only got halfway there.  Properly, it’s the public-facing half of the office.   Today, I finished the rest.  Measured twice, cut once, all the way to the finish line. It looks really good.

I’ve cut the Vyvanse down from 70mg to 50mg.  Seems like a better fit.  Less dickhead, with all of the positives.  Maggie approves so far, after nixing the 70mg.  Also, this is the first time my EMPLOYEES nixed a medicine based on dickheadishness.  I’m happy that they trust me enough to tell me.  I’m also happy that one of my employees (the one who told me), also told someone I was the best boss she ever had.  THAT makes me happy, for sure.  Then again, acting on immediate feedback from employees about things is apparently not super-common, based on limited sampling.

On a personal note, I’ve been struggling a bit with the limitations of my ability to effect change in my personal life.  This is a post in itself, and definitely for another time. The summary would be “Nobody gives you a biscuit for doing a little bit better.  Get used to it or get out.”

I’m leaving tomorrow for Florida.  Six business days “off.”  I can’t tell you how lucky I am that I have a team in place that I can trust.  I’m still in insane Pre-Vacation mode… it can’t be avoided.

I’m hoping to relax a little bit, regain my center, test some database features I’ve been dying to try out, and catch up on my blog reading.  Sometimes I fall behind, and it’s difficult to do anything but start anew.

Talk to you from West Palm Beach.

Love to all.  Even you, the fucktard who’s been giving my son shit at baseball.

Dudes.

In about 20 minutes, my net value dropped by $29,000. It had nothing to do with the stock market. This is the life of an entrepreneur.

In an attempt to work off some of my “what the fuck just happened?” anxiety, I brought a huge suitcase to my old office on Astor Place, packed it full of 75 pounds of paper products that needed to go to the new place, and then dragged the thing 40 blocks uptown. I thought it would make me feel better. It didn’t.

I’ve been doing accounting work ever since. I’m on the train now. What I need is sleep. And dinner.

The thing is: everything is fine (insert world-imploding sound here). We’ve got a lot of new clients, are meeting some really interesting candidates, and my outlook on everything, in spite of some sudden and unexpected changes with my staff, is pretty positive.

What I need is sleep. And dinner.

Love to all. Even you, you dude sitting in a way that HAS to making the woman across from him uncomfortable.

Love to all. Even you, you squarejawed classist.

I just moved into a shiny new office on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It has two huge, beautiful windows. The place itself isn’t that big, but it’s got 4 separate working spaces… so there’s room for a hyperactive serial entrepreneur to change thinking locations… which is really important to me.  And it’s my name on the lease, this time.

It’s been a very, very busy three days. I’m exhausted.

Of all the exciting things… the new furniture, the printer, the place itself… there’s one thing I installed which makes me feel all awash in low-key glee: the door chime.

It’s one of those two-magnet-sensor jobs that sends a signal to a speaker when the magnets get too far apart. Initially, the thing BLASTED that 8-note Westminster chime, but by moving some jumpers and adding a little duct tape, we’ve got a gentle “boop!” whenever anyone comes in or leaves.

Bliss.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who’s deciding whether to offer to settle for a quarter-million dollars.