got on the phone with one of our contract programmers today. long story short is that we made a bad decision to let him program in his language of choice rather than ours (he can do both). this led to needing to host much of our content on his servers. unbeknownst to us, his hosting company doesn't even offer a freaking control panel.
i know what you're thinking--'um, isn't that a bit micky mouse? like, a LOT mickey mouse?'
the two part answer to that is a) 'yes it is' and b) 'with a gun barrel stuck between your teeth you can only speak in vowels.'
we're extracting ourselves from this as quickly possible, of course, but in the meantime, i need a subdomain setup. takes 30 seconds--when you have your own control panel. (believe me, i feel like a complete idiot for travelling down this road.)
without your own control panel? about 3 emails, 2 phone calls, and 2 1/2 days.
so today during phone call number 2, i said to him 'dude, come on. this is crazy.' (or some version thereof.)
he then launched into a story of how his data center had really been letting him down lately, etc. excuses.
i interrupted and said (and i quote), 'bro, not to be callous, but i don't care. i just want my subdomain.'
the excuses stopped, but so did any other commentary or responsiveness. total silence. like, looong silence.
after several seconds of silence, i said, 'okay?'
and in what was either a very pissed off or very ashamed or very both voice, he replied quite tersely, 'okay.'
here's the deal. he's a nice guy. his programming is fine. but every conversation with him involves an excuse at some point as to why something isn't getting done and why it isn't his fault.
the bottom line is i really, really, really don't care why something isn't getting done that he's promised to accomplished. i just want the result i've asked for and that has been promised.
in fact, giving me excuses as to why something isn't getting done seriously diminishes my confidence in you because it tells me that any number of things are capable of derailing you from delivering on what you said you would deliver.
i don't care. i really don't want to know. if x isn't done, just tell me 'x isn't done. i've dropped the ball. i will do whatever it takes to get it done by the end of the day.' that's taking responsibility and that's getting the job done.
sa::tm
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