Firstly: if I was the boss I’d fire her as she isn’t doing her job. Any boss that keeps her is going to lose tons of business as she’s going to be a resource drain. You don’t have to give a cause for termination, and if she was there under three months nobody has to report that she worked there (or at least that’s how things go in Virginia). You cut out the weeds before they choke the garden.
Also, yeah, “moms” make crap workers. Anyone who defines themself as a mom/dad are always going to be a “mom” first and whatever she’s supposed to be doing second. On top of it all, they expect special treatment because they’re a parent! Any dog can squeeze out a puppy: you are not special for breeding. I’ve seen some employers get really paranoid about this refusing to hire females at all because they will “just have a kid and stop coming to work.” Maybe the childfree ones are OK, but considering how many b~~~~ to the wall breeders there are, I can’t blame them for being cautious.
I’d like to say from personal experience that web design isn’t any better. Frankly, any “design” field has the same issue. You deal with morons like her all the time only they are the ones telling you what to do. EVERY client is a teenage girl on the verge of a tantrum who has zero clue what they want and you have to treat them as such or they will walk all over you. Nobody ever has their crap together and you need to guard your co-workers because the one weak-willed idiot will cost you your shirt.
For a ton of examples, check out Clients from hell, but here’s a wonderful example that happened to me last year.
One stupid bitch wanted a weight loss group site where local people can chat about losing weight and encourage each other. It was to have a blog-style main page, a forums for the talking part, and a little shop where the site can sell vitamins and junk. Ok, sounds standard. I was working as part of a two man team in a small company with only three people total. I was going to do the design work and my co-worker was going to do the server backbone stuff and wrangle the client as he was the company co-owner and I was a new hire. We had a four month timetable with the fourth month dedicated to after-launch support.
Month two arrived and she couldn’t even pick a logo and color scheme. My partner was supposed have given me the specs long ago so I could get working, but he couldn’t get a straight answer out of her that didn’t change every other day. I sat down with her three days later and had a logo, color scheme and basic layout picked within an hour. I got to work and had a working prototype of all three site sections up by the end of the week.
She approved the site design in-person soon after, but then went behind my back and said she wanted to change the color scheme to make it a little brighter. The change was no biggie as I was still in the prototype phase, but the fact that she went behind my back to do it troubled me a little. I brushed it off, thinking it had to be because the co-worker was supposed to do the wrangling. A week or so later, she wanted to change the shop into a chat board. My idiot co-worker didn’t re-negotiate contract, he just said “OK” as one feature is one feature (no, no it’s not). After that she wants to add a launch countdown page. Now, this bugged me a lot as it’s yet another feature that the co-worker just added in without even thinking about re-negotiation.
By the time I walked away eight months had passed and the site had ballooned to thee logo redesigns, four different site re-designs (and she wanted a fifth!), a chat system with private message and multi-room functions, an accounts system that spans the entire site with private messaging, a “life card” for tracking goals, Forums that were re-designed twice and now had one per state, no shop (goodbye work!), and she wanted the entire thing to be mobile-friendly. Did I mention that ZERO contract re-negotiation had taken place and that she wasn’t paying us any extra for our time? Oh, and I was expected to keep working even though I wasn’t getting paid. Bastard still owes me $800 from the project plus overtime. The site never launched as he never finished the backbone as “he couldn’t keep up with the constant changes” and, as he said the rest would be paid at the end of the project, he’s using that as a reason to not pay me a dime despite the fact that my part was the only part that was ever completed.
All of this because the guy literally one rank above me couldn’t say “no”. Looking back I realize the reason she went behind my back with a small request (the first re-color) was to get her foot in the door. She smelled weakness in him and was wedging her way in. When I confronted him about giving in without re-negotiation, he told me he was scared she’d take the business elsewhere if he did, even though the contract said “no refunds”, she already paid half upfront, and we really were the best deal in the area (she was determined to work face to face only). I reminded him of all this and the insecure weakling just kept dribbling on and on about being scared of not getting paid the rest and getting sued if he tried to re-negotiate the contract like an actual businessman to make it match what was being done. One year later his bills are in the rear and his company is failing. Can ya tell why?
Morals of the story: clients are c~~~s and “men” can be worthless, too.
Beauty fades, dumb is forever.
Anonymous 4 years, 6 months ago.
