I work full time for a training company, but i also run my own media company with 3 other people. We have been doing work for a client of ours for about eight or nine months now and we have had nothing but troubles.

It ranges from non-payment, to going back on decisions regarding print media and website additions, to plainly not doing hearing or receiving anything from them at all.

The most recent example of the lack of coordination between our client and his business partners are when I received a phone call this morning. It went a bit like this:

Business Partner: Hi Matt, where’s my access to the website?
Me: I can’t give you access, we are building a website in the background and I don’t want to stop our progress if you were to add anything to the root of the domain.
Business Partner: Oh, so whats happening with the site? Seeing as it’s my website, I should be able to see it should I not?
Me: Yes, Ok, if you want to see it that’s not a problem.
Business Partner: So, send me details of the log on and I will have a look at it.

You might read that and deduce that he is just a little frustrated and merely wants to see the website. The problem is, this guy has thrown his weight about before with the end result being that we went to the client and simply asked; “Who are we working for?!”. The client was telling us one thing and the business partner another.

The client apparently had a word and nothing was heard from his business partner…..until now.

To me it’s all part and parcel of the job, but if we had received the wording, the design specs and the notes we needed from the client when we asked, we would be a hell of a lot further down the road with this project.

It’s got to the point where I need to decide what to do with my career/life. I have a good(-ish) job that pays extraordinarily well for the area I live in (that said, I am not a slacker, I think I do the work of 2-3 people in a larger company). Here lies my dilemma, I am stuck in a job where I am a manager, but only of three people, the other two used to be in my position and were so overcome with their work they don’t do it anymore, therefore I am by orders not to even ask what they are doing. There are constant politics on who’s done what and who’s fault it is and I’ve decided that enough is enough, I need a place of work where I am working hard and seeing my efforts rewarded.

I am going to look about for other jobs, I will have to be very lucky to find a place willing to pay me what I am on now but I will try nonetheless. I have management experience, I singlehandedly run the IT in this place and I have some intermediate to advanced websites under my belt.

Anyone want to hire me?!

I havent been able to update much lately, life has been a bit of a blur. Whilst work hasnt been busy customer wise, the office is still a hive of activity. Preparation for courses, making sure that people are being certified once they have passed their course are just a couple of jobs that keep us busy. I have been working on some new projects for the company, trying to increase market visibility via the web and also giving us an overall branding for all the services we provide.

I like the sort of job that I have at times like this, I am able to research and implement new ideas and techniques and see if they work on a very specific target audience. It allows me to indulge in technologies and services that I would have no concept of using if it was a personal project.

Outside of work, I have been busy trying to chase clients (who never want to return calls or emails), sort out birthday parties and squeeze in a little personal time. I helped the preparations for Katie’s Dad’s 60th birthday party, decorating the marquee, getting the balloons pumped up and fixed, attaching numerous 60th Birthday banners all over the place. The party itself was a laugh, 100+ people turned up and her dad received his own weight in Whisky by the looks of it!

To all those I havent spoken to or replied to, I wholeheartedly apologise!

Two days ago..

So there’s me and our graphic designer sitting at our desks tapping away. Suddenly an elderly woman walks up to our door and comes in. She explains that she lives round the corner and she doesn’t have a computer, she needs to write a letter to her water company.

So she asks if we can do type it up for her! Flabbergasted, my colleague asks the permission of our manager and we reluctantly agree only for her to tell us she hasn’t written it yet! She says she will get her husband to finish it and drop it over.

Not wanting to sound rude, I tell her that the local libraries have computer access, she merely replies with; “Oh, but you are so much closer”!!!!

Today..

So she comes back, letter in hand. Exclaims that it’s great to have her own secretary and tells us she will be back whenever to pick it up. I tell her to come back tomorrow morning and off she trundles, probably to have her perm done or something.

Wonders never cease.

Another addition for today, this is a very good one!

I had my yearly review today, I had taken an early lunch because of it and came back to face the music.

When I walked in, my boss was surprised that I hadnt taken anything into the meeting with me, I said that a lot of the information that was needed is stored all in my head, “no worries” she says and the review begins.

She starts off with what was said by my old manager in my 3 month review, in big black capitals it says:

“THE INTERNET IS HIS” (wtf!!)

She goes on to explain how I tend to let myself work in isolation, I am told that more delegation is needed if I am to 1) take on more work 2) stop getting stressed when things dont work. It made me chuckle and she enlightens me as to what she has witnessed since I had first joined. From there she basically says that I dont have any job roles set on paper, I should make my own, as the one’s that were first given to me in no way actually detailled what I did. I am allowed to write my own……result!

My then open’s a dossier and says, “Now we have got the crap out of the way, onto the good stuff.” She goes on to explain how I will be made a team leader of a new project, awesome. I have 2 hours to work out if a clients idea is worth using. This to me is great as it is something outside of my normal job and it is a role (consultant) that I could fill as I progress up the working ladder.

We finish with some question and answer’s and I ask if I would be allowed a rise in my pay. She asks me what I think I should be on. Looking after my interests, I say a figure and she tells me that she will up my current pay check by £4500 and upto £6000 if I manage to get some of my projects completed by a set date. A £6000 pay rise is something I could not have imagined, I have gone from being unhappy in my job to suddenly having a whole new set of angles to navigate, awesomeness in a can.

Whilst visiting Digg, I came across this site, basically it allows you to redirect people who have come onto your site via Google only to find a 404 error to a valid page (damn, I dont think even I can understand that last sentence!).

Its good if you, like me, have taken over a website from another coder and dont know what pages are actually in use (mine is a particularly large site) and want to keep users on your site and viewing valid content.

Anyways, take a look @ http://www.stevenhargrove.com/redirect-web-pages/