thunder and lightning…
Today was an interesting day for work. Very good meeting with the customer, then afterwards, very good pow-wow with the co-workers. It is always interesting to get word that the shit is about to be flung toward the fan, then enjoy the lag that happens as the shit has to travel from California to Hawaii to Atlanta to wherever in our spread-out company in order to reach the proper fan.
Anywho, the fallout from today’s news may be felt as early as tomorrow… as a “team” from California is flying in to meet with the same customer that they sent me to meet with yesterday. I have to say, I think I’m sort of glad that there will be a “team” handling it, rather than me, but…. more than just excluding me, they are attempting to exclude the offshoot consulting firm which is supposedly “taking over” this website business from them. The problem is, the customer in question only agreed to work with us based on the knowledge that the recent big guys aren’t the guys in charge anymore… that we’re back to the old reliable crew, ie. the consulting firm.
So, tomorrow, the “team” from California, which is sure to include many sales-types with their full smoke-and-mirror gear, gets to inform the customer of the change in the agreement and of their plan to start from scratch on the customer’s site, in order to give them the attention they deserve. See, with me in the loop, the customer was expecting graphics for the site to be done by Friday, so we can start building content. With me out of the loop, the team tomorrow gets to sit down and feel out the customer to see what they want in a website. Doesn’t sound like progress to me. Can’t imagine the customer will take it well, but…
… today, myself, the consulting folks who brokered the deal, and the couple half-old company/ half-consultant employees who had been managing this customer for almost two weeks now were told, rather bluntly, to fuck off, we’re handling it ourselves.
aoide has made a Comment
Did I miss something. What’s going on with the comapny?
February 24, 2005 @ 8:28 am
flerly has made a Comment
We don’t know, really. We think the man with the little name has gotten a big head. Perhaps you recall the local realty firm who is one of the largest of their franchise in the US? Well, they left the us because customer service was too low down on the big company’s priorities, and the distant, impersonal, California based customer-service-cronies didn’t baby them the way we used to locally. They turned around and built a new site on a piece of shit platform just to get away from us.
Well, Lloyd and pals had the happy pleasure of informing them about the breakup which launched the local consulting firm that looks a whole lot like the good old people they loved coming back. Thus, Lloyd got the customer to sign a nice new fat agreement for a site with us. Before the ink was dry, though, California has already decided that this is too big a customer to trust to our fledgling consulting firm of local people familiar with the customer, and that they’ll need to keep it in house.
On Thursday, today, the customer will be informed of this change as Mr. Little and his cronies fly in personally for a meeting, where they scrap everything we’ve done so far, disconnect all of our people, and assure them that the distant, impersonal California company isn’t so bad. That, in fact, a distant, impersonal Hawaii staff of developers and designers is their new prize.
So… let’s put it this way. Everyone at the consulting firm is trying to be out of town for a few days so that California will be in the clear to handle the shitstorm that the customer throws up without us being “available” to step back in and perform any rescue activities until they are good and covered in the smelly filth and thereby learn their lesson…. or not. Who knows what kind of spindoctors they have coming out…
We just don’t know what’s going to happen…
February 24, 2005 @ 9:52 am