Attitudes in IT - Mediocrity Wins?

podo asks: "I've spent the past two months of my life working almost full time on a PHP/MySQL based web site for a client. Today I received an e-mail from the client point me to a similar web site set up by a competitor. 'Doing exactly what we are doing.' The site in question is not doing what we are doing, they have no dynamic content, no web forms, just e-mail addresses. They scarcely have any content (I counted only four HTML pages) at all. The client is chastising me for taking a long time and because the other site is 'much more impressive visually' than ours. Has anyone else found themselves in a situation where their painstaking work is compared to work which is a showcase for mediocrity? How have you dealt with such clients who fail to see the difference between a shoddy rush job and real quality?"

Comments

Solution is:

[Singletoned]

Create four sexy looking static pages for them and spend the rest of your time working on freelance stuff for other clients.

That way everyone is happy.

Wow..

[hookedup]

I wish it were the way for me... I still have clients asking why i'm not using that animated .gif they emailed me..

ugh...

What color do you want that database?

[MarkGriz]

Ask him what color he wants his SQL database.
If he says "I think mauve has the most RAM", run like hell.

Re:What color do you want that database?

[megalomaniacs4u]

Order give an Etch-a-sketch and see if he likes his new Tablet PC and dont't forget to explain how to reset it (hold above head and shake)

Re:Yes, But Make Sure Client Knows What He Asked F

[mrzaph0d]

hmm. maybe that should be someone else's job. this other person could take the specifications from the customer to the engineers, and then from the engineers to the customer.

wouldn't that make everything easier?

Par for the course.

[simonfunk]

I was involved in a simulation project for a chain restaurant that saved them $54 million over the next few years according to their own computations. The first time we showed the simulation to the president of the company--and mind you, there was vast quantities of kick ass technology on display here--his only comment was that the icons for one of the food products didn't show enough cheese. Partner up with someone who likes to make things flashy. He'll bring in the checks and first-time customers, and your technology will bring the reputation and repeat business.

Re:Oh, yeah, forgot!

[Crash Culligan]

Ask the client "Do you want mediocre? Cause that's what that site is, in the final analysis, and I can have it do exactly that if you want, but in the end it'll be mediocre - and I don't think that's what you want."

Or the variant approach I'm fond of:

"Okay, for $2000, the dog will walk through the hoop. For $4000, the dog will jump through the hoop. And for $6000, the dog will do a double-back flip through the hoop while juggling plates and whistling 'The Star Spangled Banner' through a body part not normally known for making music."

"So what will I get for $250?"

"For $250, the dog will look briefly at the hoop, and then go back to licking its balls."

Call it crude, call it poignant... but you'd be surprised how many people will go for the cheapest possible solution until you demonstrate to them how absolutely bad the thing they're asking for is. They don't even know how little qualified they are to evaluate wha they want.