Experience indeed teaches us a lot of things; things that we won’t be able to learn at school because we can’t go through a million and one case studies during class hours that will help us in real-life situations. I’ve been pretty stressed out this week because of the nasty weekend with Thylvethter’s birth problems and having to take her to the vet at an ungodly hour…now she’s still not 100% and I think she’s got some sort of fever. She is also spotting, needy and sickly so all this is stressing me out a bit. I am now convinced that family and loved ones will always come before work, because I am having a hard time even wanting to face my clients at this point.
Anyway, earlier today I was reminded one very big lesson in freelancing and handling long-term clients: that I should sit them down before we even begin any project, and tell them exactly what my job is…and what it is not. A lot of people who are not well-versed in computer and technology have absolutely no idea that there are different fields in this career category. They believe that if you know how to build a software, then you will know how to build a computer (hardware).
I am a web designer, and a CMS website developer. This means, that I my job entails a bit of graphics work, some HTML and PHP wherever necessary, and a lot of CSS and backend (website setup and maintenance). I also do search engine optimization, which is using methods to promote a website in a way that its performance is enhanced in the search engines. This is pretty much what I do. I would call what I have just mentioned, my specialty.
I am NOT a graphic designer…a graphic designer specializes in graphics. They are digital artists. Anyone can use paint or Photoshop or Illustrator to draw or compose a pretty picture. I do not specialize in graphic design so I would consider myself “okay” in this. Because I’ve studied Art and Design, and I have fairly sound aesthetics, I wouldn’t do as badly as someone who had zero skills and zero creativity. I would say I have the ability to design graphics. But this is not my specialty.
There is a difference between ability and specialty.
Putting on a band-aid, doesn’t make me a nurse.
Earlier today, a client called me for the same reason another client did, several years ago. Their computer isn’t working well due to a possible virus attack and I need to drop everything I’m doing to come by immediately. I didn’t even know how to react. I really don’t like my blog being a rant zone but some days this blog deserves a rant post.
I just had a bad weekend, and I can expect this whole week to follow in the same direction.
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WYSIWYG! I'm a simple person trying to live the simplest life possible - it seems to be the most difficult thing to achieve! I'm an internet enthusiast and I've been a webmaster since early 2007. I like: blogging, developing sites using open source software, social media, computer games, '80s music, comedy & horror, animals, crunching on M&Ms peanut and Smarties!
