Putting my foot in it

Must learn to keep my mouth shut

I’ve taken responsibility over updating a “what’s on” web page at work with updates about every month and I’ve been given the FTP login details by the company who currently looks after the site. I was browsing through the webspace with a couple of collegues and I found that the entire website was contained in one folder in the web root called “NewFiles” which contained all of the HTML files (probably a hundred or so) with no subdirectories or obvious naming convention. The archived news was in individual HTML files scattered around the place, the pages contain odd bits of broken javascript and the site only really works in Internet Explorer. The web page was now several months out of date and it needed some recent content. Pictures are missing and badly arranged.

I pootled over to the gallery.

Me: Hi [Arts Officer], have you got the new “what’s on” leaflet for the gallery? I want to update the web site and I need some new content because it’s all way out of date.
Arts Officer: No, not yet. *Looks vaguely over my shoulder*
Me: So it’s not been printed?
Arts Officer: No not yet. But I’ve got some text about the exhibition in January.
Me: OK, could you email it to me?  I’m not sure where to start really, I’ve just been looking at the web space and the organisation is a complete shambles, there’s no structure to anything at all and the pages are a mess.
Arts Officer: Right. Ben, this is [name of woman standing behind me] from [name of company who currently looks after the web site].
Me: Ah.
Woman: Thank you for just insulting my Father’s work. I’m afraid we can’t charge very much for your web site so it’s very low down on our list of priorities.

I explained that I hadn’t meant to cause any offence and I completely understood that it wasn’t their top priority (I didn’t, we pay them enough! They don’t even have a web site of their own). But that from an organisational point of view it’s a nightmare, there’s no structure in it at all. It also has the problem that the menu doesn’t work in Safari (the main browser we use) or Firefox (the main browser I use). To that she replied:

“Yes, but I find a lot of web sites don’t work in Safari. Don’t You?”

Oh why did you have to go and say that? I tried to explain, in the politest possible way that this was more likely down to web design than the browser itself, that the web sites probably aren’t following web standards. Just because something works in Internet Explorer doesn’t mean it will work for everyone.

“Well I suppose that’s a lesson we should learn. Perhaps you should learn to think before you speak.”

I have to admit, she has a point. She then made signs of leaving, having had the final word, so I apologised again as she walked off.

When she’d gone I curled up in the corner and nearly died with embarassment. The Arts Officer reassured me, saying that yes it was unfortunate but that she thought we had both dealt with it in a positive and professional way.

In other news

Teaching our children it’s wrong to share
Perhaps someone from Creative Commons could go along and teach them a different lesson…

SCO web site is defaced
Very subtle, very amusing, but doesn’t really help the case at all. Not to be condoned.
Meanwhile SCO is merrily selling its first Linux licenses in the UK What is it they’re selling exactly?

NASA throws lump of metal at a comet
Apparently for scientific reasons.

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