I am sure Dawn (of Dawn’s Brain) and Evil Panda (of Dark Designs) can back me up on this:

You are contacted by a potential client (yay!), usually sent to you by word of mouth, and you’re making a shopping list with the money you will make as the client begins to explain their needs. Then it starts going south. You get a bad vibe and you start feeling that if you get involved with this project you might as well pick up your banjo and join the band on the deck as the design takes on icy water.

I just deflected a job that stank of sink. The client sent me a url of a site in development that the wanted my opinion on how to make it “better”. They also offered “suggestions” of what they would like to see. One of the questions they asked was “What program created the code?”

How odd…

I looked at the site and other than some garishly coloured graphics, I could find no fault in the code or the site layout. Whoever created the site knew their stuff: the CSS was like looking into the face of God. It was compliant to all standards and worked extremely well in Opera, Safari, Firefox and IE. The layout was smooth and professional and in the end I really could not see why they wanted to revamp this development site. I basically said to them that the site is done, just change the colours, dump the bright graphics and stop spending your money on redesign after redesign.

I got this back:

…your input was excellent.
In one paragraph you described the problem and
Offered (sic) the only solution possible.

Thank you again

I breathed a huge sigh of relief as there was no “…now can you do it?” attached.

Of course I just spent 2 hours of my freelance life for free but I think I deflected hours of aggro.

I got one of those credit card sized CDROMs jammed in my machine, given to me by the owner of the company. You must never put one in your machine kids, for fear of having it spin out of control and slicing your motherboard up like Edward Scissorhands in a porn shop. I mentioned it to the owner when he handed it over to me but he insisted and *glinkt!* it gets stuck in my machine.

I call the IT department to tell him there’s a disk jammed in my machine (you can see where this is going).

“What do you want me to do about it?” he says after I explain my problem.

“Get it out?” I ask cautiously.

After explaining to him why it got there and possibly how it got jammed, he said he’d look at it…tomorrow.

Am I overreacting here? If a computer breaks down, should I try to fix it myself?

This is perfectly how this company is run. Passing as much as possible on to the next guy. I hope to god I get a review soon. I’m gonna have a hey-day.

I just had a manager run up to my desk, panicking like a drag queen who’s lost her left falsie and the DJ just hit play. This guy would never acknowledge me on good days and suddenly I’m his pal. He sent a file to the other web guy, now at lunch, to be put live on the company site. Of course its wrong and goodlorditneedstocomedownnowNOWNOW!

I like to treat these people like I’ve caught them letting their dogs crap on my lawn. Because basically that’s what they’re doing: I’ve screwed up it’s your problem now, too.

I like to add a stupid “Well lets see now…” look pass over my face when they need an answer right away.

I am destined to be fired from every job I have.

I just typed the words: Steve Irwin’s Theory of Evolution and now I feel like I need a bath. The things I do for this company.

“Crikey! We all know that beasties of all types evolved from puddles of vomit from the Sunday morning streets of Coober Pedy!”

My boss just told me that I can’t have a day off to move and claim it as maternity/parental.

I guess they really do read those forms.

From Jim’s comment on a post a couple days back:

If you ever use the word “blogosphere” again I will come to Toronto and kill you.

I’m sorry. Should I have used “Blog Collective”?

Today in a meeting I said with a complete straight face: “I’ll move that project to the front burner.” And after a nanosecond, where I decided that was a dorky thing to say, I added: “…and will fire up the current paradigms with regards to staying inside the box on this endevour.”

My coworker just asked me about how I celebrate Xmas, to which I replied that I didnt. What followed was a line of questioning like I was on trial. And when I tried to explain myself he interrupted me to tell me that it was “too bad” like I had the blackest heart in all of Whoville.

Sir, I say fuck off, to you and yours. Would he condemn me so quickly if I was Jewish? Because my family is spread across Canada and the UK, I take greater pleasure out of celebrating New Years and other calendar events with friends and whatever family is available than subscribing to your ideal of a perfect Xmas. Plus I am barely religious (hence why I type “Xmas” all the time) so why should I celebrate this mystical birth while paying into the stress of the season?

Yes I do exchange gifts. Yes I do go to Xmas parties with something in hand for the host. I am charitable at this time of year. I am not the original Grinch, you dickwad. I just dont celebrate like you do, so keep your self-righteous attitude and fake sympathy and shove it in your stocking and stop looking down your nose at me. You’ve obviously lost your sense of what Xmas is suppose to be.

Oh and Merry Christmas!

I was taking care of my PLP* when suddenly the washroom door kicks open and I hear an aluminum step ladder unfold roughly on the tiles.

An apologetic face appears over the stall.

“Sorry buddy,” he says, “I have to test the smoke detectors.”

I wave and smile.

* PLP = Post Lunch Poo.