The Most Beautiful Days
Wow. Last night and today have been really maybe two of the most beautiful days this year, though maybe it is because of the horrible weather we have been enduring for the past three weeks. My clothes enjoyed a chance to dry as well, especially the pair of jeans that had been "drying" for over a week now.
I might not have noticed, had I not been lying in bed last night around 1:00 when from nowhere one of those thoughts popped into my head... the kind that knows when I want to have it, but seems to have more fun waiting as long as it can possibly contain itself, when it pops out giggling hysterically taunting me "Nya nya nya nya! You couldn't catch me! Here I am!"
I had forgotten to lock the office door when I had left 7 hours earlier! The trains were done for night, and I didn't think I could concentrate on my book anymore if I didn't do something about this, so I hopped on my bike and rode the one hour there and back, only to find that the door was locked when I got there... either that bastish little voice was lying, or the boss had come back later and found the door unlocked...
The bike ride between work and my apartment is usually always a pleasant one, since I live right on a river with a walking path and gardens along side it that stretches from beyond my apartment, all the way to Kichijyoji and iinogashira Park with the promise that I never have to ride on Tokyo streets. In the spring, the entire distance is lined with cherry blossoms, and any night you can hear the romantic sounds of copulating carp.
Maybe it's because of the heat, maybe because of lightly crowded paths, but no matter how pleasant a day ride can be, it can not compare with riding along that river in the middle of the night. The sweltering heat and humidity have long since been banished by the cool breeze that every night come to visit me through my window every night in the summer. It always seems happier though when I go outside to play.
Today was just as wonderfull... hot in the city, but that breeze was back at it's usuall hang out, our river. I was trying to work, clean, read, shop etc... but wound up just taking a nice afternoon nap by the opne window with Guri pooping on the pillow beside my face.
Yes, I went to work on Saturday again... and I worked from home tonight. I am weak and ashamed of it. No matter how much I try to reclaim my own personal time, I can't seem to escape. The problem is that there just isn't enough time at work, to provide the kind of service that I expect myself to give to the clients... even if they don't care about certain seemingly minute points, as the producer of the web-site or program, I have trouble delivering a "faulty" product, even if they wouldn't consider it faulty now because they are worried about their budget and they want me to cut corners. Only problem is that my name is on it. If a undesirable bug, no matter how livable, that the client decided not to fix, or the lack of a feature the client decided not to add because of budget concerns causes great annoyance to them down the line, Kevin is the one who made this...
Not having enough time in the work day to provide the client with a quality product is a major problem, and I have been trying to solve it by giving the clients what they agree too and pay for. I have started making contracts clearly stating what we provide and don't provide, and what we suggest but the client turns down, thinking this will make it easier on me, but it does absolutely nothing to allow me to be proud of my work... I hate making crap, so I wind up spending so much of my own personal time doing things the client doesn't pay for... just giving away my life.
I guess what I have to work on is convincing them why they need a certain feature, and why the process I recommend for creating a web-site or application must be followed to get quality, clearly illustrating all the lost value in customer usability, or time spent by their own people using a poorly designed application because they wanted us to cut corners. Or another option, turn down clients that want to contract us for crap. I'm not interested in selling more functionality, or more projects that the client doesn't need, it's more important to me to complete only a few projects, but complete them well. I guess I'm not much of a business manager though, since spending more time on a project, to make sure it gets done right, will loose money... but there must be a profitable middle-ground.
I hear that PromisesThe Promises web-site was down at the time of writing this post, so here is a Google search with results regarding Promises., a film about Palestinian, and Israeli children's lives, is coming to Tokyo. I have to find someone else who wants to see it, so contact me if anyone reading this is in Tokyo and would like to go. For more information about the film, I mentioned it and posted a Fresh Air interview back on May 24Down at the bottom of this post you will find a link the a Fresh Air interview with the creators of Promises..