Category: Wider world

Bridge out

I work in Lawrence, Massachusetts right next to the Merrimack River. In fact, I can see the water from where I am sitting right now (although my view is now obscured by foliage). In this stretch of Lawrence, there are four bridges over the river. There’s the freeway bridge that 495 uses. There’s the “Duck Bridge”, a green metal 19th century construct which is right next to us. Then up river there are two more bridges, the nearest of which is currently under construction.

For the last two weeks, the Duck Bridge has been out of commission while they do some utility work on it, which has involved digging up the approaches and making lots of holes in the road. This has impacted me greatly. You see, daycare is on the other side of that bridge, almost exactly a mile away. I have had to drive around the bridge, but due to construction and traffic and lights etc. the bridge outage has added nearly 10 minutes to my “in Lawrence” commute. I usually go see the boys during lunch, but it has been taking prohibitively long to drive there so I’ve started walking. This has actually been lovely — to get out and get exercise. My only concerns are that it takes longer than I usually schedule, and I’m really not walking through the nicest parts of town. In particular there’s what can only be described as flop house that I pass. I’m careful to stay alert and not carry anything of value. But the exercise has been nice.

Another effect has been that there’s construction right outside my window. I could live without the jackhammers, but it’s been fascinating to watch them work. Construction workers are amazing with their big machines. The other day I watched this guy with a digger use it to pick up two construction cones and move them. I can’t believe the dexterity with which they use their machines, as though they’re extensions of their bodies. It’s very interesting.

The bridge is supposed to reopen this weekend, for now. But I’m informed that next year they’re going to totally rebuild the bridge. It certainly needs it. But it will be out for THREE YEARS at that point. I’m going to be severely impacted.

Ah well. Maybe it will result in me getting more exercise!

Thoughts on pandemic flu

It seems as though, at least for now, Swine Flu is not “the big one”. Lot’s of people are complaining about how the media has hyped it up and sensationalized it, how there are already tens of thousands of deaths a year due to regular flu, and how this was all really a tempest in a teacup.

My perspective on the issue is rather different.

  • The kind of flu pandemic we are worried about will be one to which we have no prior immunity. This means that more people will get sick and people who do get sick will be sicker. For the regular flu, most adults have some previous carry-over immunity.
  • On a related note, MOST of the time, there is a vaccine available for the regular flu. That helps spread out the rate of transmission, means fewer people are infected and the infections are less serious, and can help halt transmission. For a scary-new pandemic flu, that will not be true.
  • In the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed more than twice the number of people killed in WWI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic), the people who were mostly likely to die were the strong, healthy adults. With the regular flu, the people most likely to die are the very young and the very old. (Really, if you think that everyone was overreacting, read the Wikipedia article on 1918 and think again.)
  • With the 1918 flu, up to 5% of infected individuals died. That pandemic cost us Gustav Klimpt and Bill Yawkey (of Yawkey way) as well as 70 to 100 million other mother’s children.
  • I have heard, although I can’t find support for this, so it may just be false memory, that some victims of the 1918 pandemic died within 12 hours of showing symptoms.
  • If infection rates are very high, our superior medical technology won’t help THAT much. We only have so many ventilators and doctors. Our emergency rooms normally run at or over capacity. If 20% of the population is sick, you cannot count on a hospital bed, ventilator and focussed attention.

So do I think the response we just had to the flu was an overreaction? Absolutely not. We aren’t out of the woods yet on this one right now — it might take a nasty turn. We certainly aren’t out of the woods on this virus. As the 1918 flu pandemic happened, the first wave was mild, the second brutally lethal.

Even if it happens to pass that this mutation never takes a turn for the nastier — which God willing it won’t — the efforts we have spent have NOT been in vain. In the first place, there was no way of knowing whether this would be a big deal or not ahead of time. The world needed to act as though it was going to be as bad as 1918 and hope that it would be wrong on the “overreacting” side. Who knows? Maybe if we hadn’t slowed it down or stopped it, there was some person in whom it was going to mix with another virus or mutate and take that nasty turn. These actions MAY have prevented it.

But most importantly, chances are good that some day the world will face a viral pandemic like the 1918 flu. This episode has provided us with an excellent chance to practice. I would not be surprised, for example, for people to realize we need more early tracking all over the globe. I also wouldn’t be surprised if plans were changed. For instance, it quickly became clear that the pace of global travel meant clamping down on infected areas was useless. Lots of the transmission was from people in richer countries who had vacationed in Mexico. When you mean shut the borders, do you really mean strand your 19 year old daughter in Cancun and don’t let her come home from her spring break?

So no. I’m sure the media enjoyed the ratings, but they didn’t make this up or play it for all it was worth for no reason. We were not — still are not — sure how this will all fall out. And a influenza pandemic remains a very real and very scary risk.

NOTE: This page has a great breakdown on flu deaths in regular circumstances:
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/f/flu/deaths.htm

The news is dead. Long live the news!

I think it is fair to say that once this financial crisis is done, the landscape of America (and the world) will be different. Venerable institutions will have disappeared. New upstart companies will have taken advantage of the tumult to move into markets. Some things that used to happen will permanently be gone. Some new things will have taken their places. The world will be different tomorrow than it was yesterday.

I was thinking yesterday about two of the industries currently in upheaval — the car companies and the newspapers. I was reading this article about how the newspapers that were going under were the ones whose owners had attempted to extract cash from them or who had leveraged them heavily.

When a car company goes bankrupt (or an airplane manufacturer), it pretty much means that there is one fewer car company in the world and likely always will be. The capital requirements for building cars is monumental — all the factories and parts suppliers and designs and dealerships. It would take a mammoth infusion of capital to even produce one car and sell it at one dealership — maybe a billion dollars to start up, even on a small scale. So if a manufacturer disappears, the only way we’ll get new companies is if existing companies with that infrastructure splinter, or someone takes over the remnants of the old one.

But newspapers? As far as I know, newspapers require three things to run them:
1) People to learn the news and write it up (reporters)
2) People to edit that news, check it and hold the reporters to standards (editors — this is where a newspaper is not equal to a bunch of amateur bloggers collating their reports)
3) A way of disseminating the news. That could be a print edition or a web edition.

Um, on the face of it, it requires about as much as an internet startup does. Talented people willing to spend their time for equity, and with experience in the business could start a newspaper from scratch, I believe. Where am I wrong in this equation?

There are lots of printers to whom they could outsource a print run, but I have a sneaking suspicion that paper newspapers might indeed die off in this period, to be replaced by digital versions. (NOTE: The Boston Globe provides me a tremendous service and gives me lots of my news. For free. Online. If I want to give them my money, I have to sign up for their dead trees. I do not want dead trees. So I don’t give them my money.)

There is, of course, still the issue of the revenue model. But could current revenue models work if the newspapers didn’t have to pull the weight of previous debt? Is the problem that these companies can’t honor prior commitments and make a profit today?

So my thesis, to boil it down, is that existing newspapers may go belly up en masse. But the news function of newspapers will move to a new online model which will run partially by subscription and new information companies will arise to replace the old newspapers. I believe that some of the sea changes we are witnessing will include requiring people to pay for content they now expect to be free (online news) and a return to the idea that a company can employ people and throw off a modest profit — and not need to make investors wildly wealthy. I think more people (like my imagined news entrepreneurs) will value a good, enjoyable job that will pay the bills, without needing a promise of vast pelf in order to spend their time in the endeavor.

April Fools Day

One April 1st I got a great one off on my friends. I was early in my pregnancy with my first child and was exuberantly sharing all those sorts of details pregnant women think other people find interesting. Then on April 1st I wrote about a doctors visit where to my great shock, I’d had an ultrasound that showed a second baby hiding behind the first! A Beta behind my Alpha!

I got ’em but good. Everyone bought it, hook, line and sinker. My sister called up SO EXCITED! My friends told me about their experiences with twins, offered to connect me with parents of twins they knew and talked about appropriate naming conventions for twins.

It was one of my finer moments.

Sadly, they’re now all on to me. I could say, “I had Cheerios for breakfast” and on April 1st they’d probably quirk a skeptical eyebrow. Actually, last year I thought of delaying announcing my pregnancy until the first of April and make a real announcement when they would expect a fake announcement and then wouldn’t THAT confuse ’em. But I couldn’t wait that long. (Actually, one of my coworkers did that exact thing today! Yay babies! My poor boss!)

My mom tells a story about how badly April Fools translated to Zaire. She and dad were at the hospital (?) and my sister was at home. A woman rushed up to them and told them that she’d been bitten by a venomous snake (a real danger). The woman kept the “hoax” going as long as she could, and for a terrible bit of time my parents thought my sister dead or dying of snakebite. The “April Fools” wasn’t so funny that time.

Two of my favorite hoaxes this year:
Gmail unveils a new tool (I assume)
An awesome new sleeping bag for the Star Wars afficionado (actually, this looks AWESOME – but the lack of a real warehouse is a bit of a tell)
Qualified new leadership for GM (this actually isn’t a bad idea….)

What about you? What’s the best hoax you’ve pulled off? What’s the best one you’ve had pulled on you? What’s the worst hoax you’ve encountered?

Hold on to what is good

During Lent, I am trying to not walk down the path of panic, negativity and despair. I know the path is there. I know what is going on in the world. But I see nothing to be gained by letting fear corrode my soul, by widening and making firm that dark road. Bad things will happen, or they won’t. Who by worrying can change what may or may not come?

Of course, there still needs to be planning. I think we’re all saving our extra nickels these days and carefully looking at our balance sheets. Do you lie in bed at night and think about how long you would be ok if you lost your job? I do. I make plans in my head for what I would do if it were a little bad, a lot bad, horrible. I stop at the “martial law and pillage” level because I don’t think there is a good plan against that one.

During the hard times, though, those who have enough and a little bit extra need to be sure that we throw our weight against the doors of last resort, to keep them closed against hunger, nakedness and bitter cold.

This morning I read an article talking about food banks. Actually, donations to food banks are up. But costs and needs are up higher. How horrible it would be to swallow pride (your only meal for the day) and go to a food bank, only to discover that there is nothing for you.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/03/16/turse/

There is a great sense of powerlessness and anxiety, rippling through our culture and our days. It is hard not to feel insignificant in the face of problems in the Trillions of dollars and the canker of uncertainty. We can’t fix the banking system. We don’t know how the world will look when this all shakes out. We don’t know if ours was an aberration of time, and things will never be that way again. Against that, however, we need to hold on to what we have and what we can do. We have love, friendship and fellowship. Spring is not aware that life is dismal, and will shortly be glorious as though it’s 2005 all over again. And while we can’t fix the banking system, many of us can give a donation of money, food or time to help our brethren eat.

Hold on to what is good. Encourage the faint-hearted. Help the weak. Be patient with them all. Rejoice without ceasing.

What he must eat

I’ve learned a lot by sending my sons to a daycare where many of the families are served by public services. In my white, middle class, privileged world we might get suggestions on what we should do for our children from our pediatrician, or Oprah, or our parents. But in this other world, there are all these mandates that come down from on high to try to help less educated, poorer people treat their children appropriately. Frankly, when you’re on the receiving end of these, they sound bossy. You wonder if you’ll get in trouble if you don’t follow them. It’s as though there are far more rules there than there are in my world.

Case in point.

I was feeding Thane today (actually, I was bouncing him on my knee because he wasn’t hungry) and I mentioned that I was thinking of starting him on solids. The daycare lady looked relieved and brought me over a sheet she had been given by the folks who control her all-powerful license. It was a rule sheet that said all children 4 – 7 months of age MUST be given cereals at breakfast and at snack (3 tablespoons) and an additional fruit or vegetable at lunch — in addition to fortified formula or breast milk. Must.

What a spot to put my care provider in. Defy her licensers? Defy me AND provide cereal if I decided to wait until 6 months to give him solids? Sneak past me? Sneak past them? Tell me I also MUST follow these guidelines and start him on solids, even if I thought he wasn’t ready?

I can understand why they do it. The folks who promulgate these policies aren’t bad, or even wrong. My pediatrician also says 4 months is a good time to start thinking about solids. I guess the difference is that I am given information and possibilities and expected to use my judgment. In some ways, this daycare provider and women like her are a conduit of information from our government to poor parents, saying “This is what you ought to do in order to raise a healthy child.” I am simply unused to being on the receiving end of those pronouncements, or being told what I MUST do.

In this case, it’s not a big problem. I think Thane is ready for some real food this weekend. I’ll send some cereal and food with him on Monday. But it is still an odd feeling.

Nearly famous

So sitting right next to me is this book:

I opened it to read the acknowledgments:

For Josh, Em an Al — my three better halves, and never mind the math.

I beat Em in Gheos last night. I know all three of the acknowledgees. I even know the authoress.

This is SO COOL. It’s like, um, really cool. At least half my friends have had visions of writing a book and having it published, myself included. More of my friends have actually written books, myself not included. But that someone I know can have, through hard work and talent, actually written and published a real book which can really be purchased through Amazon!??! Tres cool.

So go. Buy this book. Read this book. (I will as soon as I can — only my great devotion to my children prevents me from perching on the couch right now.) This book represents the hopes that we have, but fulfilled by great efforts and abilities of Maggie.

A civil society

There is a defining moment in my life regarding politics. I’d been exposed to national politics from the time that KUOW launched and my father found it on the radio. Prior to NPR, I heard a lot of oldies and Paul Harvey. After NPR, I heard a lot of NPR. So all of a sudden, I became exposed to this wild world of politics and the world. I wonder how my life might be different if my father had chosen to listen to talk radio instead? I think he, like me, just likes “voices in his head” at all times.

Anyway, from about the time I was 11 or 12, I passively took in information about the world and politics. But it all became very, very, very personal when I was a junior in high school. There was major school board drama going on. There was a levy being proposed that was important for maintaining services, and there were good guys and bad guys vying for school board positions. I knew the good guys — the ones who supported the good teachers and my beloved principal and superintendent (the school was small enough for me to know both of them well personally). Also, the good guys happened to be the parents of one of my classmates, and members of my 20-something-big church. I attended nearly all the school board meetings for a year and became passionate about the issues.

I was 17. And then the Big Election to pass the levy took place. The levy failed by ONE VOTE. It was a small district. If I’d been 18 instead of 17, the levy would’ve passed. One person’s decision not to vote radically changed my high school. A bunch of the good teachers left. The superintendent left. The principal left. I think the quality of education really did take a hit. It wasn’t ALL about the one vote, but that one vote made a huge difference.

Since then, I have never underestimated the power of my single vote, and the importance of local elections. The national elections obviously get tons of the coverage, and they are clearly important. But I think the local elections actually have a much greater impact on the quality of the lives of Americans. Your local schools, whether your parks are safe, what the job market looks like in your area, how many potholes you have to navigate — those are all decided by local governments. That cute kid across the street? If he goes to a public school, chances are that a portion of his ability to succeed in life (and pay your social security) depends on whether your community decides to support schools with tax dollars or not. And in a local election, it is entirely possible that a handful of votes will decide that issue.

Yesterday was primary day for Massachusetts. I tried to go out of my way to figure out what the elections were and which candidates best served the goals I thought were important. (I personally talked to both candidates for my party and read their position statements in the local paper.) I still failed to identify one of the contested races — I wish there were an easier way to know what was going on in the local elections.

But we walked, as a family, down to Town Hall. We explained as best we could to our son why voting was important. And we were two of the approximately 3000 citizens of our town who voted.

Being an informed citizen requires work. But it is both an honor and an obligation that we have.

What Can Be Said?

What can I say about my boys, the Red Sox, which has not already been said by my friends this morning? They are a beacon of hope in a dreary world, even while they raise in us such high anxiety it is hardly to be believed. Who didn’t have heart palpitations last night, with Foulke up, facing the go ahead run in the bottom of the 9th having walked two? Who didn’t wonder if a ball sailing over a right field wall would dash our hopes of life and further sleeplessness? Who failed to marvel as umpires got not one, but two difficult calls correct?

Not I — that can be said.

For the record, I would also like to state that I honestly thought Alex Rodriguez was a better man than that. I have not forgotten that his youth and mine coincided in Seattle.

And tonight, hope again! And fear, my friends. Fear that destiny, fate, and long history move us towards heartbreak once again. Hope that this year, this time, this at bat, might be different. In a world where polling numbers and analysts tell us who we will elect, where reality tv is shot months before we watch it, where even a baby’s face and sex are known before it is birthed… two great nations stand facing each other, and do not know whether the morning brings joy and exultation, or the bitter and ashy taste of defeat.

How few things we do not, or do not expect to know in advance. How ill-prepared we are for the mystery of wait and see. But we were not supposed to be here. The prophets told us our hope was lost, our cause barren. The sages said that it had never been done before. Our own hearts told us that our team labors always under an ill star. But we are here. We hope. We live. We strive.

And all that may be said with certainty is that tomorrow, we will awaken to a great emotion. One nation will stand. One will fall. And the roll call of history will go on.

Amusing job posting

I was just contacted by a recruiter who wanted to know if: 1) I was available 2) I had any friends 3) I knew of any good ColdFusion boards. Striking out on 1 & 2, I sent him the classifieds section of the ColdFusion boards. Just idly looking, if found a job posting with the following. I find it hilarious — such sad and sordid tales the writer must have experienced! Thank God I work where I do!
————————-

Please ONLY respond if you:

1. Have RECENT experience with Cold Fusion & SQL Server (NOTE: 3 years ago is NOT recent).

2. Are available to work at least 35 hours per week RIGHT NOW (NOTE: 20-25 is not equal to 35).

3. Are willing and able to speak on the telephone during business hours, return calls, and you’re able to communicate well in English. You must also have a telephone number at which we can reach you – and not by appointment only. If you object at all to speaking on the phone, please do NOT respond. If you tell us later that you don’t like to talk on the phone or prefer email, you’ll be immediately taken off the job.

4. Are the type of person who calls the project manager if you don’t understand something in the spec. Making assumptions and doing things your way is NOT acceptable.

5. Understand that a deadline is a deadline and must be met. Missing any deadline without our prior approval means that the project will be reassigned.

6. Are familiar with working on sites hosted on web servers of hosting companies AND understand what FTP is. If you’re a programmer and you don’t know what FTP is, we really don’t want to hear from you. Also, if you don’t know where to find files on a web server, you don’t have the experience we’re looking for. Files are not always in the root!

7. Have a developmental server and computer set up that you can use to work on and the necessary tools to complete the job. You must be ready to start work. NOTE: If you do not have these tools and are willing to work onsite here where we do have the tools, you may still respond.

8. Are willing to work initially for a short time with no money upfront realizing that you will only be paid some money when we see some work done. (We are willing to pay incrementally when we see an area of the project completed and we’ve tested it to ensure it works. In certain instances, we’re willing to allow you to show us work on your server if you are nervous about payment. While we can’t pay for any entire element while we’re viewing it on your server (unless you give us FTP and database access), we’ll be glad to make a partial payment once we see that portion working properly and then pay the balance when you move it to our server. We’ve been burned too many times. We realize you may also have been burned but we do want an ongoing relationship with you. We’re a business and we’ll sign a contract with you ensuring payment.) If you write code that doesn’t work properly, we can’t pay for it. You are welcome to take it with you as it’s of no use to us and we don’t want it.

PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND IF:

1. Any military body you were in erased any part of your memory which now prevents you from remembering the spec (even if you just read it 2 seconds ago) or when the deadline falls.

2. You are egotistical, rude, argumentative and/or aggressive — particularly to women. Please go do that somewhere else.

3. You are a nervous wreck on the verge of a breakdown because: (a) your marriage is on the verge of falling apart and you’re emotionally unstable as a result; (b) your child(ren) scream(s) 23.9 hours a day which makes it too hard for you to work; (c) your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend doesn’t like you freelancing and/or demands that you take care of the baby for 12 hours a day and you think you can do our work before 6 a.m. and after 11 p.m. and still stay awake and conscious and not give us complete and utter junk — you can’t; or (d) any other reason not mentioned. If you need constant handholding and compassion from us in order to avoid having a complete nervous breakdown which you’re always on the verge of, we can’t help you, sorry. We can’t be your marriage counselor, psychotherapist or your confidante. If you need any of the above, please find them elsewhere.

4. More than 2 projects at a time puts you over the edge with stress about getting them done; whereas less than 2 projects at a time also puts you over the edge with financial worries. We have many projects and we need a person who can multi-task. If you can’t, don’t respond.

5. You’re the type of person who uses profanity or inappropriate material in naming your variables or in your testing. “Got really drunk last night” is not appropriate in a business environment. Naming variables after sexual organs is also not appropriate.

6. You believe in abandoning projects BEFORE they are finished or missing deadlines you set for those projects. (Even if you are the greatest programmer on earth, we’re not paying you if the job isn’t finished and finished ON TIME. It’s worth nothing to us otherwise.) If you frequently use excuses for missing deadlines, PLEASE do not respond. We are really not interested in hearing that you need another 2 weeks to complete our 2 week project because: your mother died three times in a year (unless you really do have three mothers — and next time we hear that, we’ll ask for proof!); your unexpected house closing prevents you from working (the closing is NEVER THAT unexpected, we’ve bought houses); you have to go to a wedding at the last minute in another state; you suddenly have to move out of the area; you have unexpected friends from out of town that you need to socialize with; you forgot the deadline and thought you said 20 weeks for the project instead of 2 weeks; you did too many drugs in the 70s/80s/90s and can’t think straight anymore; you thought the deadline was just made up to make you work harder; you had ‘top secret’ classification in the military and they erased your memory when you got out and you can’t remember everything you used to be able to; you hired your buddy to do part of the work and he let you down and didn’t do it; you found out you’re losing another job and feel depressed about it so you can’t work; your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend doesn’t like you working so much and needs to hold your hand while you watch TV for four hours a day so you can’t meet the deadline; your pet tarantula died and you’re too depressed to work; you’re hung over; your sister’s mother’s aunt’s niece’s daughter got picked up by the cops and you need to disappear for 2 weeks; your internet connection died but you’re still able to send ridiculously long emails explaining what happened — you’re just not able to do any work for the next week; you can’t connect to the database anymore because the hosting company upgraded to a different version and you don’t want to download the trial version upgrade because big brother could be watching you; your laptop crashed and even though you have 6 other machines on hand, you’d prefer to rebuild your laptop for the next month than to do the work that we’re paying you for; you forgot that your friends were going to have 3 beach picnics and 4 parties when you said you’d do the work and you completely forgot your aunt’s 61st birthday, your best buddy’s kegger and your husband/wife’s family reunion picnic, and you’d prefer to attend those than get the work done.) etc., etc., etc.

We’ve already heard all the most outrageous excuses and we’re REALLY NOT interested in hearing any others.

6. You are a prima donna programmer who thinks that you can do the work your own way, deviating from the specs, and that we should find it acceptable. We won’t. There is ONLY one spec: OURS. Not the one that exists in your head. Not the one you think it should be. Just the spec you were sent. If you don’t want to work on that spec as we’ve written it, then tell us that upfront. But don’t deliver something else. That’s not what you were hired for. It may be absolutely brilliant, but it isn’t what the customer asked for so it’s useless to us and we cannot pay you for it. If you don’t understand something in the specs provided to you, don’t ever ASSUME. Call. If you think something is stupid, CALL. If we say do it anyway, do it. We know the client. We’ve been over all the “stupid” things with the client.

7. You are not able to comment and document the work you complete.

8. You believe in bidding on a job for one price and then decide later on that you want more money to finish the work that you bid on in the first place or you think that doing the job is one price, actually making the work live, is another??? PLEASE NOTE: If the specs change, we expect you to want more money. If they don’t change, we WON’T pay you more to do the work you bid on. If you underbid the job because you didn’t read the specs, whose fault is that? It’s not ours.

9. You do not understand that in order to bid on a job that requires modifying work that already exists, you need to FIRST take a run through the front end of that project and review any existing code. It is not acceptable to later on say that you didn’t realize there were other pages that this needed to work with because you didn’t go through all 3 pages of the project before you bid!!! Nor is it acceptable to say you missed the deadline because it took you longer than expected to review the existing code or there was a learning curve with the existing code. Reviewing the existing code before you bid, solves this problem. I don’t care if you were a DBA for 100 years, no one is so brilliant that they don’t need to review the existing code!

10. If we have a tense moment or we say that we don’t like the way you did some work and that it’s not absolutely perfect and you’re not the greatest programmer God ever put upon the earth and/or, we don’t constantly stroke your ego and reassure you that you’re wonderful every 5 minutes, you go off and sulk like a baby and when we try to call you to discuss it, you let the answering machine get it, listen to our message and then respond seconds later with a nasty mean email. Be a grown up, pick up the phone and talk about it.

11. You’re incapable of doing preliminary testing. If an element of a project contains a link to add an item, a link to modify an item and a link to delete an item, then all 3 of those should work BEFORE you say it’s done. If there is an image to be uploaded in one of those links, test it. Don’t say later that it works as long as the image isn’t modified! That’s one of the features of the project! It’s not done until it works!

12. You don’t understand that a deadline is a deadline. You set the deadline. If you miss it and tell us on the day the work is due, the work is useless to us. No excuse covers that. NONE. If the spec consists of 5 areas and you deliver 3 of those by the deadline, the work is NOT complete by the deadline. Making excuses about how well you’ve done the 3 areas and that you were going to complete the other 2 areas within the next few days is not good enough. You set the deadline. Deliver the work on or before the deadline. ALL the work, not some of it.

Sadly, ALL of the above situations and examples have happened with other developers we’ve subcontracted work to during the last 6.5 years. We’re looking for someone who is serious and wants to make some money working with us. We’ve got so much work that we’re turning away projects right now because we don’t have the right people working with us. We don’t want to treat you like a kid and certainly don’t want to be your mother or father. Are you a grown up? Can you communicate normally and talk on the phone? Do you want to make some money in return for work? Can you meet deadlines you set? If you are solid and reliable, with verifiable references (your best buddy from high school, your cousin or your girlfriend are not acceptable references), and are looking to form an ongoing relationship with a web development firm and make serious money working for us over a long period of time, we’d like to speak with you. We will provide more details as soon as we speak with you.

Otherwise, if this isn’t right for you, we totally understand and wish you all the luck in the world.