6 ms·

You sound like a programmer that is "difficult." It also sounds like you're the type of programmer that doesn't treat designers with any respect, so they likel

by Chris_G 17y ago

You sound like a programmer that is "difficult." It also sounds like you're the type of programmer that doesn't treat designers with any respect, so they likely reciprocate -- the type that doesn't like to collaborate, but just boss people around (it's more than apparent from your post that you sneeringly look down upon the design profession). In short, you come across like a huge jerk and I can't imagine what it must be like to work with you. Let me see, according to you, designers that are "great to work with" (the ones that just shut-up and do whatever you tell them) produce "eye pollution". The ones that are "difficult" (have opinions and give input whether you want to hear it or not) end up producing "incredible work", but you just hate working with them. Ever consider that the problem might be you?

kyro 17y ago
If it means anything, I've worked with the OP and he is a very kind, cooperative and fun person to work alongside. You come off just as judgmental as you're making him out to be.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  In fairness the opening line does scream "set in ways" to a degree that would put me off a little. Not to be judgemental but I wonder if people that do work for Zarathu for the first time might have trouble communicating if this is his usual style. And as a result dont get chance to build a working relationship. It happens a lot. I personally like direct people but plenty don't :D
  - Zarathu 17y ago
    My opening line was satirical. I hate text editor arguments, and the Rails v. Django thing is really old, too. I've used both Ruby and Python, vim and TextMate, and they're all great. You just need to use the right tool for the job.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      Heh, I apologise :) I read the whole thing as one rant. checked EDIT: I do sympathise, finding really good people to contract work to is an absolute pain.
- palish 17y ago
  Ah.. That may be true, but all we have to go on are little letters in cyberspace. It's good to know he's different in real life, though.
  - gloob 17y ago
    Ah.. That may be true, but all we have to go on are little letters in cyberspace. We may as well make sure that we're on shaky footing, then, so long as we're rushing to judgements about people we've never met. Seems like a constructive way to start a conversation. Edit: Really, the sensible thing to do would be to answer the question, rather than rant about how our internal Internet-psychologist has provided us with shining insight into someone who is potentially on another continent. Edit edit: Not that any of this is really directed toward you; I'm just ranting myself. :P
  - Kaizyn 17y ago
    For now we may only have little letters. But soon as it is adopted, HumanMarkup will revolutionize online communication: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=humanmarkup http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=h...
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
Zarathu 17y ago
No! I realize that I sounded like a bit of a dick in my post, but that's just how I write. Let me elaborate. I've contracted a designer before (an HNer, mind you) that literally told me that he was working on the design for about 3 weeks, without showing me any form of progress whatsoever. On the last day we were working together, he said, "I've been busy, and I haven't had time to work on it. Find another designer." He had been jerking me around the entire time without doing an hour of the work, and later admit it. This has happened on more than one occasion. He had a brilliant portfolio. The ones that are difficult aren't difficult because they give me opinions; in fact, that's what helps to make a great designer. I like creative people that come up with their own ideas.
- TheKid 17y ago
  This experience has nothing to do with the designer's design skills or work-style at all. This is an experience based on someone who didn't treat you well as a customer. Find someone with good recommendations, contact the businesses they include in their portfolio and ask how the project went. Find someone who's clients would actually recommend and you're more likely to have a good experience because you've established that the designer has a track record for delivering a good product and providing a good customer experience.
- webwright 17y ago
  Set smaller goals. If you're using a designer for the first time, have a 15 minute progress chat every few days. Use it as a time to cover any questions that have come up, look at his progress so far, take about any scope changes, etc. Also, how much were you paying? A lot of designers (well, a lot of people) don't want to say no. You can oftentimes talk people into working for less than they think they are worth... Which leads to them de-prioritizing your work. If you're the least lucrative bit of work that they have, it's not good. And, when it comes to hiring (contractor or otherwise), you've GOT TO DO THE WORK. Ask them for references, call them, and ask them hard questions.
- Chris_G 17y ago
  Draw a triangle. On each corner, write: > Quality Work > Timely Delivery > Economical Price You're ONLY ever allowed to choose TWO. > If you want quality work produced in a timely fashion, then expect to pay top-dollar. > If you want work turned around fast and don't have any money to spend, expect the quality to be crap. > If you want quality work and don't have a big budget, expect it to be attended to whenever the the service provider has some free time. It is a maxim of business that you will never escape. This is true of any profession, and is especially true of both programmers and designers alike. If you are paying proper compensation, you should never have a problem getting quality work, by a designer that makes delivery of your goods a priority. Perhaps you found a bad apple, and that is unfortunate. If so, then the market should weed them out in time. But you say the designer did great work, and it sounds like they had plenty of good-paying projects elsewhere and you simply got back-burnered (and they were not candid with you, as they should have been). I've seen it happen a dozen times is every line of work. ---------- I forgive you for how you came across in your initial post. I'm also told that I'm a friendly fellow who sometimes comes across as... blunt, in writing.
gloob 17y ago
There's something vaguely saddening about the fact that the "you suck" post has twice as many upvotes as the highest-rated post actually answering the question.
- Chris_G 17y ago
  Might it be pointed out, I never said he "sucked." He titled his post by stating that Designers "suck." Then he had a rant about why he thought Designers "suck." Then made a request for Designers to contact him if they want to work with him. All I did was quote from his own post, and point out how it came across. Apparently a lot of other people agreed.
  - gloob 17y ago
    Might it be pointed out, I never said he "sucked." I was paraphrasing. I believe it was a fair enough summary of your point. To make sure we're on the same page, I'm mostly looking at this part: Let me see, according to you, designers that are "great to work with" (the ones that just shut-up and do whatever you tell them) produce "eye pollution". The ones that are "difficult" (have opinions and give input whether you want to hear it or not) end up producing "incredible work", but you just hate working with them. Deliberately or otherwise, that is needlessly condescending and aggressive. What's more, you pulled your parenthetical statements out of the air - the OP never explained what made certain designers difficult to work with. You simple assumed that the worst plausible interpretation was the correct one. All I did was quote from his own post, and point out how it came across. Apparently a lot of other people agreed. I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but from my perspective the argument I was just pointing out how he comes across; I didn't actually say he was like that is entirely unsatisfying. (Whether other people agree with either of us or not is, I feel, immaterial to my point here). For instance, I could suggest that your original post gives me the impression that you are a not-entirely-pleasant person who is looking for opportunities to be miserable - it would be rather unfair of me to then immediately backtrack by saying "I didn't say you were like that, I just said it gave me the impression you were like that." The possibility that the OP was legitimately frustrated by working repeatedly with designers who actually did suck was apparently not entertained by you - instead, you leapt from his expressed frustration to the hypothesis[1] that he is, more-or-less, an asshole. Behaviour of that sort reduces the value of the discussions that go on here, imho. [1] If I were in a less charitable mood, I would say "conclusion".
poset 17y ago
Having had some experience with working with Nick Kezhaya in the past, I can attest he's as caustic and annoying as his writing reads. Decent code/server monkey, but we quickly hid him in the back room after he hurled racial epithets at a potential business partner who happened to be Jewish.
- Zarathu 17y ago
  Obvious troll is obvious.

by Chris_G 17y ago

kyro 17y ago

If it means anything, I've worked with the OP and he is a very kind, cooperative and fun person to work alongside. You come off just as judgmental as you're making him out to be.

ErrantX 17y ago
In fairness the opening line does scream "set in ways" to a degree that would put me off a little. Not to be judgemental but I wonder if people that do work for Zarathu for the first time might have trouble communicating if this is his usual style. And as a result dont get chance to build a working relationship. It happens a lot. I personally like direct people but plenty don't :D
- Zarathu 17y ago
  My opening line was satirical. I hate text editor arguments, and the Rails v. Django thing is really old, too. I've used both Ruby and Python, vim and TextMate, and they're all great. You just need to use the right tool for the job.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    Heh, I apologise :) I read the whole thing as one rant. checked EDIT: I do sympathise, finding really good people to contract work to is an absolute pain.
palish 17y ago
Ah.. That may be true, but all we have to go on are little letters in cyberspace. It's good to know he's different in real life, though.
- gloob 17y ago
  Ah.. That may be true, but all we have to go on are little letters in cyberspace. We may as well make sure that we're on shaky footing, then, so long as we're rushing to judgements about people we've never met. Seems like a constructive way to start a conversation. Edit: Really, the sensible thing to do would be to answer the question, rather than rant about how our internal Internet-psychologist has provided us with shining insight into someone who is potentially on another continent. Edit edit: Not that any of this is really directed toward you; I'm just ranting myself. :P
- Kaizyn 17y ago
  For now we may only have little letters. But soon as it is adopted, HumanMarkup will revolutionize online communication: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=humanmarkup http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=h...

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

Zarathu 17y ago

No! I realize that I sounded like a bit of a dick in my post, but that's just how I write. Let me elaborate. I've contracted a designer before (an HNer, mind you) that literally told me that he was working on the design for about 3 weeks, without showing me any form of progress whatsoever. On the last day we were working together, he said, "I've been busy, and I haven't had time to work on it. Find another designer." He had been jerking me around the entire time without doing an hour of the work, and later admit it. This has happened on more than one occasion. He had a brilliant portfolio. The ones that are difficult aren't difficult because they give me opinions; in fact, that's what helps to make a great designer. I like creative people that come up with their own ideas.

TheKid 17y ago
This experience has nothing to do with the designer's design skills or work-style at all. This is an experience based on someone who didn't treat you well as a customer. Find someone with good recommendations, contact the businesses they include in their portfolio and ask how the project went. Find someone who's clients would actually recommend and you're more likely to have a good experience because you've established that the designer has a track record for delivering a good product and providing a good customer experience.
webwright 17y ago
Set smaller goals. If you're using a designer for the first time, have a 15 minute progress chat every few days. Use it as a time to cover any questions that have come up, look at his progress so far, take about any scope changes, etc. Also, how much were you paying? A lot of designers (well, a lot of people) don't want to say no. You can oftentimes talk people into working for less than they think they are worth... Which leads to them de-prioritizing your work. If you're the least lucrative bit of work that they have, it's not good. And, when it comes to hiring (contractor or otherwise), you've GOT TO DO THE WORK. Ask them for references, call them, and ask them hard questions.
Chris_G 17y ago
Draw a triangle. On each corner, write: > Quality Work > Timely Delivery > Economical Price You're ONLY ever allowed to choose TWO. > If you want quality work produced in a timely fashion, then expect to pay top-dollar. > If you want work turned around fast and don't have any money to spend, expect the quality to be crap. > If you want quality work and don't have a big budget, expect it to be attended to whenever the the service provider has some free time. It is a maxim of business that you will never escape. This is true of any profession, and is especially true of both programmers and designers alike. If you are paying proper compensation, you should never have a problem getting quality work, by a designer that makes delivery of your goods a priority. Perhaps you found a bad apple, and that is unfortunate. If so, then the market should weed them out in time. But you say the designer did great work, and it sounds like they had plenty of good-paying projects elsewhere and you simply got back-burnered (and they were not candid with you, as they should have been). I've seen it happen a dozen times is every line of work. ---------- I forgive you for how you came across in your initial post. I'm also told that I'm a friendly fellow who sometimes comes across as... blunt, in writing.

gloob 17y ago

There's something vaguely saddening about the fact that the "you suck" post has twice as many upvotes as the highest-rated post actually answering the question.

Chris_G 17y ago
Might it be pointed out, I never said he "sucked." He titled his post by stating that Designers "suck." Then he had a rant about why he thought Designers "suck." Then made a request for Designers to contact him if they want to work with him. All I did was quote from his own post, and point out how it came across. Apparently a lot of other people agreed.
- gloob 17y ago
  Might it be pointed out, I never said he "sucked." I was paraphrasing. I believe it was a fair enough summary of your point. To make sure we're on the same page, I'm mostly looking at this part: Let me see, according to you, designers that are "great to work with" (the ones that just shut-up and do whatever you tell them) produce "eye pollution". The ones that are "difficult" (have opinions and give input whether you want to hear it or not) end up producing "incredible work", but you just hate working with them. Deliberately or otherwise, that is needlessly condescending and aggressive. What's more, you pulled your parenthetical statements out of the air - the OP never explained what made certain designers difficult to work with. You simple assumed that the worst plausible interpretation was the correct one. All I did was quote from his own post, and point out how it came across. Apparently a lot of other people agreed. I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but from my perspective the argument I was just pointing out how he comes across; I didn't actually say he was like that is entirely unsatisfying. (Whether other people agree with either of us or not is, I feel, immaterial to my point here). For instance, I could suggest that your original post gives me the impression that you are a not-entirely-pleasant person who is looking for opportunities to be miserable - it would be rather unfair of me to then immediately backtrack by saying "I didn't say you were like that, I just said it gave me the impression you were like that." The possibility that the OP was legitimately frustrated by working repeatedly with designers who actually did suck was apparently not entertained by you - instead, you leapt from his expressed frustration to the hypothesis[1] that he is, more-or-less, an asshole. Behaviour of that sort reduces the value of the discussions that go on here, imho. [1] If I were in a less charitable mood, I would say "conclusion".

poset 17y ago

Having had some experience with working with Nick Kezhaya in the past, I can attest he's as caustic and annoying as his writing reads. Decent code/server monkey, but we quickly hid him in the back room after he hurled racial epithets at a potential business partner who happened to be Jewish.

Zarathu 17y ago
Obvious troll is obvious.