10.04.2007:
An unordered list of thoughts I had during a conference call with a potential client today
1:34 PM- There's no way in hell this is going to be under thirty minutes. Why are you lying to me? It's not possible. You know it's not possible. You are a liar, sir.
- God, I wish I'd been paying attention in college when they went over the definition of "synergistic" in English and "how to leverage it" in Business... Oh yeah, I didn't go to college. That's probably why I use regular words and thoughts to describe how I want to create a product and then make money on it. And why I know you can't "leverage" anything, given that it's a noun.
- IF YOU SAY "Drink the Kool-Aid" ONE MORE GODDAMN TIME, I'M GOING TO BURST THROUGH THE WALL AT YOUR OFFICE, KILL YOU IN A VERY UNSIGHTLY AND BLOODY WAY, AND THEN SCREAM "Oh, YEAH!"
- Facebook isn't the internet, dipshit.
- New technologies like CSS, huh? Wow. You guys have your thumb right on the pulse of this here internet thing.
- Oh for chrissake... AJAX is NOT A LANGUAGE, and you CANNOT "code" A WEBSITE IN IT.
- MySpace isn't the internet, dipshit.
- I know you guys are in California and all, but last I checked, the timezones don't shift back far enough for you to have been born yesterday...
- You want to rank and hide comments on your "Completely open and honest corporate communications blog," but only after an admin / editor has approved the comments that have been made? Do you not understand the concepts of "Completely open?" And for that matter, ranking and hiding?
- You can't use XML to "program" a site either.
- You want four million users by DECEMBER?? You have four hundred active licenses for your product currently! Nothing - and I mean NOTHING - is going to add four zeros to the end of that number in three months short of hiring Arthur Anderson to handle the bookkeeping.
- Wait... First you wanted to clone Digg... Then you wanted to "add the social aspects of Facebook to it," and NOW you want it to be Wikipedia? Where the HELL did you spend your morning? In the "Web 2.0 Company Names to Memorize" symposium sponsored by the local Linux Enthusiasts club?
- Uh... Four million active users means minimum 20,000 concurrent users at any given moment, and you want to do all of this on ONE co-located virtual server in India? On .Net and MS SQL Server? Honestly? You really, really think that's how it will go? In that case, can I punch you? Please? I mean, I only ask because you seem like the type of person who'd ponder the question and then just blurt out "Yes," and I've been dying to hit something since I pressed "1" to join your conference.
- Flickr is not the internet, dipshit.
- Oh man, I wonder how they'd take it if I unmuted this line for just a second to let them hear how loud I'm laughing at all of this...
- Oh for fuck's sake, you honestly think you can get the guys from Penny Arcade to do advertisements for this whacked-out product?
- Did you really just say you're going to use ISS on Vista because it's more reliable than Apache? Really? Cause, like, you know you can run Apache on Windows, right?
- FACEBOOK. IS. NOT. THE. INTERNET. YOU. DIPSHIT.
- Uh... You really... Um... Okay, I guess you DO think that Microsoft will buy you next year. Can I get paid, like, all in advance on this gig? With a cashier's check?
- Oh, there it is... The three letters I've been waiting for... IPO.
- Hey Google? I have a bug to report... I checked my calendar, and it SAYS this is 2007... Are you SURE? Cause I really, really feel like I'm in 1999 right now...
- Okay, so wait - Now we're adding YouTube onto the Digg-a-book-apedia-r site you want to miraculously create in six months?
- OH COME ON... You honestly expect me to invest work hours into your project and get paid "when the VC comes in?" Like... Where's the VC coming in FROM? Xenu?
- Oh. Great. The Director of Development also owns the outsourced programming company we'd use in Romania. How... Convenient. Sounds like he's the only one in this entire group who's actually thinking about how to make a profit here.
- Where's my gun? I know I own one somewhere... Even if it's a toy gun, at least I can disassemble it and choke on the small internal parts.
- Is it impolite to just hang up and not return the call, or should I begin crafting my "No thanks" speech?
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16 Comments:
No wonder no one commented on this. What an asshole-thing to say. Seriously. I can't believe you posted these horrible, high-school thoughts on the internet, ESPECIALLY when the potentials of them reading this were sooo high.....OH WAIT. You probably didn't give a shit whether or not they saw this! Figures. I hope that you leave this on here so that other future potential clients will read this, because I know if I were interested in your line of work, I'd Google your ass, and it'd take me straight to this website....Funny because it'd actually take me straight to the drawing of Joe the Peacock's ass with feathers coming out of it.
You have read too many comic books and have WAY too much time on your hands.
Blah blah blah, no one has commented on this because comments weren't enabled until 2008. And yeah, I'm counting on clients finding this. Saves me the trouble of explaining to them why I'm passing on their great new idea to show videos with commenting on the internet.
So how bout the next teleconference you have, you leave it on UNMUTE so that they can hear your laughter? That would be a sure bet!
so how about you quit posting as anonymous and stand by your comments? That'd be... Well, dignified.
Dignified? You hypocrite! Why don't you write yet another entry about having sex and then washing yourself off with a hose at some Stop-N-Shop. I agree with Anonymous - too much time on your hands.
I'm hypocritical for writing about an embarrassing experience I lived through, owning up to it and accepting the concequences, while asking that those lobbing insults at me at least give me their name?
The internet really HAS gone downhill.
Oh well, it's clear you're only brave when hidden from view, so enjoy the Anonymous posting feature of my blog as you will. That's what it's there for.
Wow, *two* anonymous people tormenting Joe, who obviously has never been through anything difficult or annoying. How about the part where Joe had his nipples ripped off or the Peta cows destroying his dinner....
How about the part where he brings a little reality perspective to the buzzword bingo web-wannabes and declines to work with them because they have no @#$@#$@#$@$ idea about how to build more than a Hello Page website. Really.
OH, YEAH!
Always loved this post Joe ;) don't know why someone would feel like harassing you over this, everyone knows somebody they think is stupid beyond all possibility in this fashion, especially at work.
I WISH I had stories like anything Joe has posted, let alone the ability to tell them so well. Even if they were all "undignified" things...
I think this could be the "potential clients" because they couldn't hire ANYONE to work with them, because all the potential employees saw through all the b.s. They're still sucking on the sour grapes two years later.
I bet all the supportive - "Gee, I wanna be JUST like Joe!!" - comments make Joe feel good. And that's what all of you are about, right?
And what happened to the other comment I posted Joe? You deleted it, didn't you. What a shame! Such a hero to these folks, and a coward for real.
Anonymous 2
I have no idea what the hell happened to your other comment. As far as I know, everything you've had to say is right here. I don't delete shit unless it's obvious spam inc. hyperlinks, so feel free to repost it.
Besides, until you stop hiding behind the anonymity, i'm not really concerned about a damn thing you say.
Nah. Anonymous 2 works just fine for this type of site. Actually, I'm beyond bored with this site. And, yes, my posts are now gone. So am I.
Don't let the door hit you etc etc
Hey, at least he cared enough to post, even if it was anonymous. That says something right there. I'd bet money he's still lurking. Trolls always "leave" with a dramatic close, but keep coming back to see if their close sparked any controversy. It's what they live for. It's just a shame to think that this troll isn't aware that everyone's laughing at him. The rest of us are here because we APPRECIATE Joe's brutal honesty.
See, I've outright told some clients their ideas were stupid or they simply wouldn't work, or that the tasks were significantly outside of their budget. I was once asked - in all seriousness - to code a "PayPal clone" for $600. It's a good thing the discussion was over email or he'd have heard me laughing hysterically. I <3 Craigslist.
Maybe that's why most of my potential clients disappear... I should stop calling them stupid. Also, I need to work on not laughing in their face for the rare face-to-face meetings. I don't think they like that.
OMG, you're in my head! Here are some of phrases I've heard:
"low ceremony processes"
"an idea whose time is here"
"technistential"
"not directionally correct"
"if you don't have it you can't use it"
"we're using man gestures"
"the futures should be realized every day"
"do we limp and go live?"
"F*CK YOU. Strong letter to follow."
"Stevie Wonder could have seen this sh*tstorm coming"
"that project's been repatrioted"
"we'll deliver whatever ornamentation you need"
"now we're looking in the rearview mirror of what we already have"
"the intent here is to turn over the big rocks"
"I smell what you're stepping in"
"... 'cause if it gives you heartburn I need to load up on Tums"
"better than a dinosaur"
"the system should be so simple my cousin the hot-dog guy can do it"
"we don't need to boil the ocean"
"let me just hit the send button for 30 seconds"
"it's stratatical"
"there's an aperture of trust right now"
"it's a serious plumbing exercise"
"we're going to sharpen the pencils on a few numbers"
"then beach-head with them"
"that requirement won't be addressed due to a paucity of time"
"he was born to be mild"
"start unwinding those tools"
I can't believe the term "low-hanging fruit" was never used. That alone almost made me quit sales altogether and become a high-school math teacher.
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