Wednesday, 23 June 2004
Too. Tired. To. Care.
So, it's been about a week since my project from hell finished. I'm verbose, but I don't like to beat a dead horse. Still, I'm going to revisit this one last time.
I don't often talk about work details. For one thing, I think that it's important for a client relationship. For another, when I'm not working, I usually want to talk about other things. This project is different, in that it was a nightmare and I need to get things off my chest.
I'm not looking to drag our client through the mud; I still respect the business aspect of our relationship, even if the client really pissed me off. Don't bother going on if you're looking for a tawdry tell-all or a naming of names. The same goes if you don't feel like wading through my ranting.
I should say frame what comes next with the fact that it was, in the end, a learning experience. I recognize that there are several things that we could have done better on our end. Still, I place much of the blame at the feet of a client who was unwilling to make any compromises, even when he himself made the task impossible.
For us, the project seemed a pretty cool opportunity at the start: we were hired to create the dynamic screensaver and desktop wallpaper for a major football championship. Then came the scope slippage: six languages, sixteen teams (plus a general version), working on Windows and the Macintosh. Phew.
We're not a production shop, but I felt that I could handle that (I'm the one who did all the Flash programming, aside from the work that a friend did). Normally, we're there to help design interfaces with clients, keeping the best interests of their users while still respecting the clients' needs. However, we were in a rock and a hard place on this project: a third of the way in, our client made it very clear to us that he expected us to do nothing more than to implement what he wanted.
How can you live up to expectations, when what you do (interface design) is not what is wanted (cheap production)? Normally, we wouldn't have taken the job. So why did we? Because it wasn't until after signing the contract that he ever specified that we would be essentially staff augmentation.
Then came the feature creep: animated interstitials, almost no common features between the screensavers and the wallpaper (contrary to what had been specified in the contract), and "hey, let's add this" mentality. This is where we were in part to blame, because we should have stood more firmly and reigned in the client.
But this was a client who had plainly stated at the start that he needed us to be "flexible." Basically, he didn't want to be bothered by technicalities. We were very flexible (as you'll see from the number of hours I worked), but never did we get any encouraging feedback. I don't need someone kissing my ass, but I don't want to hear a client complaining that you're "only getting 60% of what [he] paid for" the very day I had worked 37 hours straight.
I truly feel that I went above and beyond the call of duty for this project, in effect creating two entirely separate programs in slightly over one week's period of time. Besides my usual perfectionism, I also had to ensure that they would work in a variety of conditions (no Internet connection, the team didn't advance in the tournament beyond a certain point, etc).
The final blow is the fact that only the English version was uploaded - until today. And now that the other versions are uploaded, only the general one is online - 16 team-specific versions are only available in English. Well, it makes sense: they waited to upload until halfway through the tournament. The final match is Sunday, 4 July; it's all over for half of the teams as of the very moment of this entry. This is what I meant when I mentioned the client ignoring the results.
Huge kudos go to my friend Brian Westemeier, who did the interstitial animations. He's a Flash whiz, and I highly recommend you check out his company, RokketChair Productions.
In closing, I really don't want to hear anyone's sympathy or get a dressing-down, either. I'm writing this more as a warning to others who seek to please clients at all costs, and of course to vent. I warned you at the start...
Above all, don't tell me any "at least..." stories. There is no "at least [insert rationalization here]." The project is finished, and I'm done talking about it. Quite simply, that's as good as it gets.
To any potential clients who I've scared off, I apologize; bitching about who I work for is not what I do. [Updated Friday, 2 July 2004: You know what, I'm not sorry. We need clients who can hold themselves to the same standards as they do us. We appreciate a challenge, and we're very hard workers. If you can't respect the business relationship that this entails, then maybe it's best that we don't work together.]
In case you have any doubts and wonder what I do do, here's a list of my hours:
| Thursday, 20 May (holiday) | 6 hours |
| Friday | 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM |
| Monday, 24 May | 10:00 AM - 12:00 AM (approx) |
| Tuesday | 9:00 AM - 7:30 PM |
| Wednesday | 9:00 AM - 8:00 PM |
| Thursday | 8:00 AM - 6:15 PM |
| Friday | 9:30 AM - 7:30 PM (client meeting) |
| Saturday | in bed with a fever |
| Sunday | 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM |
| Monday, 31 May (holiday) | 8:00 AM - 2:30 AM (the fun starts in earnest) |
| Tuesday | 9:00 AM - 3:00 AM |
| Wednesday | 9:00 AM - 2:30 AM |
| Thursday | 8:30 AM - 7:45 AM (that's Friday AM) |
| Friday | 1:00 PM - 8:30 PM |
| Saturday | 8:00 PM - 1:00 AM |
| Sunday | 9:30 AM - ... |
| Monday, 7 June | ... - 10:30 PM (37 hours, 2 of them napping at the office) |
| Tuesday | 10:15 AM - 3:00 AM |
| Wednesday | 9:30 AM - 2:00 AM |
| Thursday | 10:15 AM - 9:00 PM |
| Friday | 10:30 AM - 7:30 PM |
| Saturday | 10:00 AM - 2:00 AM |
| Sunday | 2 hours |
| Monday, 14 June | 2 hours |
That's a total of some 275 hours (roughly, because I included 2 hours of napping, my lunches, etc). That's only for me: I didn't calculate any of the late nights and all-nighters that my designer partner spent, nor any of the time (much less, but still important) put in my my third partner.