I just got an email from a work aquaintance. This is someone I like, but I certainly wouldn’t classify him as a close friend. He was a writer who brought me into a project as the web/print designer three years ago.
First of all, he started out with one of my least favorite requests:
I’ve set up a rudimentary website. However, I’m pretty frustrated using iWeb and my own limited abilities, so I was hoping to avail myself of your services. Right now, outflows far surpass inflows, so I guess I’m wondering what, if anything, you could do for me “on the cheap.”
Which he then followed up with:
If you have a few minutes to chat on the phone, I have some prepress questions that I thought you might be able to help me answer.
I sent back a nice email, giving my prices and some options. I also said I’d help with the prepress question. (I am a sucker.) Which garnered this response:
For now, I guess, if you could point me in the right direction, maybe I could bring myself up to speed on a better way to do it than iWeb. One frustration I have is not showing up in any searches, even for my own name. Not sure how all that works. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Now, obviously, this is not an unforgivable sin. But what pisses me off is the lack of awareness that this knowledge and information I have? I use it to make a living. Graphic design isn’t my hobby, it’s my career, and I’ve worked long and hard to become an authority on the kinds of things he’s asking about. To sit down and send an email, or talk on the phone, takes time out of my day. And since I only have 24 hours of childcare a week, and I’m trying to shoehorn in a full-time amount of work, I need every second.
Plus, there is an incredible amount of information online about just these things. Look it up!
Actually, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to suggest that he do a Google search for “Web site optimization” and point him to a blog entry I wrote about this (on my business site).
This just shows me how passive I am about this sort of thing. What I really should have told him, in a nice way, was “I’d be happy to consult with you. I charge $100 an hour.” If I don’t value my time, no one else will. I really need to change the way I handle this crap — I get requests like this at least once a week.
