On Freelancing and Clients 6
There’s been a lot of talk recently about clients and freelance work: who clients are, how we sometimes act, how we should act when working with them1, how we shouldn’t care how we act, and general talk. There seems to be a spike in the level of interest in writing about this topic, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to throw my experiences and thoughts on to the heap.
The Clients
Clients are the meat and bones of any freelance business, of course. They can be odd, they can think they’re superior, they can think they know more than you and push you around (but are still, oddly, paying you to do the work they “know more about”), or they can be the best clients you think a person can ever have. I’d venture a guess that 80-90% of all clients people work with are ones that fall into the latter category. The other 10-20% can be bears and make you question why you ever went into the business in the first place.
I feel every person in the freelance business needs to be burned by at least one client in their tenure as a freelancer, just for the learning experience. In my case, it came early. Very early. Before Milk Carton Designs, even2. This particular fellow was bossy, demanding, thought himself better, and didn’t give me enough time to do anything, at all3.
One particular insult of his I think I will always remember: “No wonder all web designers have bad reputations.” This stung, and it still does today; I learned from it, though, and I grew. Today, it serves as a reminder of how far I’ve come and how far I can go. It also serves as a warning to stay away from those who exhibit the same traits and demands, for the betterment of myself and my business.
The Freelancers (including me)
Freelancers can be just as varied as clients. We’re subject to our own personalities, too, coupled with the stresses from work and our personal lives. We can be overloaded and cranky, overworked and stressed out. We’re not faultless. We’re human, too.
Being self-employed as a freelancer is amazingly stressful. There’s no job security, no promised income at the end of the week. One month you could be living comfortably, with some nice, cushy, fat paychecks; the next month, nothing. You’ll have to excuse us from time to time if we seem harried.
Our lives are out there on the internet, one search query away. Most freelancers I know are amazingly transparent on the web, as am I. It doesn’t take much to find out where I live, where I hang out, who I associate with, my thoughts and opinions, or even what I look like. Do I find the need to censor myself for the sake of my business? Not at all. What I say and how I act doesn’t affect my skills as a developer or designer, and I don’t think it should be expected of us to censor ourselves. I, for one, would love to have a glimpse into who somebody is personally, before I hire them.
The Industry
There are three types of people working in this industry: the experienced, the fresh, and the know-nothings. Let me just say this to potential clients to any company: Your 12-year old nephew (in this case, a “know-nothing”) that happens to know a little HTML they picked up from MySpace and will do your site for $10 is not a proper substitute for a professional web designer. Experience, training, and a proven track record should always trump monetary concerns (within reason). You’ll find you’ll get a better product in the end.
With that in mind, this industry is saturated and very competitive. It’s hard to break into, and it’s hard to get your foot into the door. Success is very hard to obtain, but very fruitful once you do.
And when you do find success? Congratulations. You probably deserve it.
Now stop reading this and get back to work.
1 Where “we” is defined as freelance web designers, freelance web developers, and other freelance web professions, but may also refer to anyone who takes on clients for a living as any type of freelancer. ↑
2 What? You think I’m kidding when I say 7 years experience in the field? :) ↑
3 Some of this is to expected. It comes with working for other people; they’re bossy because they’re your boss, I can understand that. However, this fellow took these traits to a new extreme, one I haven’t seen or experienced since. All of this and it was pro bono work. ↑
An Open Letter to the Developers of Colloquy 6
Dear Colloquy Developers,
Today, while chatting away in one of my favorite IRC channels, we came on to the topic of your app, Colloquy. Colloquy, of course, is arguably the predominant IRC client for the Mac, and it, of course, came up in the course of the conversation. It was at this point that I realized under that smooth and shiny exterior, there are many, many, many flaws in the interior; this has prompted me to write this open letter.
First, and perhaps foremost, is the hogging of resources. While users with a great deal of RAM aren’t going to care, those of us without, do. When I used Colloquy, I’d leave it on overnight, only to find my entire system sluggish in the morning. At this point, I was unable to check the messages people left me while I was sleeping because Colloquy would crash out before I could. This was a very bad thing, a very bad experience, and something that has been long-standing. Yet, no fix that I’m aware of has come to solve this.
And speaking of crashing, this seems to be a common occurrence in the world of Colloquy. Connect to a network, join your favorite channel, say something… A bot gives you messages left to you— Bye bye! You just crashed. A little tiny bug in a theme? STOP! It’s crash time. Leave it on over night? Nope, bye. Join too many channels for its liking? See ya later. These are serious issues— some coinciding with every day occurrences— that are in dire need of fixing.
Now, let’s move on to a slightly smaller issue: notices. People who have been on IRC for a while know what notices are, they’re helpful and very useful— but not to Colloquy! No, no, Colloquy hates notices. Sure, you can see them in the console or growl (if you happen to have either open), but when every raw command is going through the console, how feasible is it that you’re going to actually see them? Not very. And even with growl, the occasional notice will get cut off. Not pretty. And this isn’t just a little problem, like just missing a couple personal notices from your friends. No, no. You also miss any notices from chanserv1, nickserv1, memoserv1, and any other bots and services, as well as network-wide notices and wallops. That’s a lot to miss, and honestly, it’s a PITA.
This is sad, sad performance from one of the “best” IRC clients for the Mac, and certainly one of the most popular. It’s not enough to be pretty, this isn’t high school. You guys need to work hard and prove you’re the best.
Sincerely,
Joey Brooks
P.S.: It’s a channel, not a chat room.2
1 These services are server/network dependent, of course, but generic, so I included them in the list. ↑
2 Yes, I know your reasons for using “chat room,” but you haven’t deviated from IRC yet, so why break standard nomenclature? ↑
I Heart Milk Carton Designs 0
I just recently launched a new service to complement Milk Carton Designs, called I Heart Milk Carton Designs. It’s a homebrewed solution for testimonials. You can see it in action at iheart.milkcartondesigns.com or on the front page.
It’s been an interesting process. It started with just an image, then grew into a desktop wallpaper, four t-shirts, and a mention on a Technorati Top 100 blog (#64 at the time of this posting). Pretty cool for a form, some CSS, and a few lines of PHP.
Go check it out and leave a nice note.
Click for a Good Cause 2
Hey folks, just a quick post here to spread the word about a good cause. Firedog and Circuit City are running a contest called Across America. The contest features 10 firehouses that demonstrate great service to their communities and will give $100,000 to the first place firehouse. Not only is it a great cause, but one of the firehouses is very close to here, and I know they could use the money. So please, click for a good cause, and vote for Chickahominy Volunteer Fire Department Station 10, finalist #6.
