Confessions of a WebFraud

On Thursday, I'd go so far as to say that I had a good day.

No, wait, I actually enjoyed my work.

I'm pretty sure this can wholly be attributed to the fact that the work I was doing was not, in any way, connected to the work I should have been doing.

Not that I technically had any pressing deadlines; my 'to do' list was full of jobs that were self-motivating tasks, jobs that I am supposed to be inspired to attend to when I have no client enforced trauma.

This abandonment of my daily web duties took an enormous amount of coaxing and coercing (reducing to down-and-dirty bribing) of the conscientious guard that challenges any sort of deviation from work related activities whilst at my desk.

I effectively managed to wangle my way around my guilt through the justification that it was my birthday and I wasn't feeling wonderfully well and if I had been living at home I would have actually been in bed with Indiana Jones.

This enthusiasm surpassed all conceivable expectations. I even spent a large part of yesterday working.

All this unexplained passion for something that I'd promised myself I'd never commit to again:

The 'Website For An Unpaying Client'.

This 'client' is in fact my boyfriend who knows all too well the personal trauma associated with The Webstress and her medium. Thus, he treated the brief, and his partner, with the caution of a fractious mother and the child she was trying to nurture/battle with and, I think, he had a certain sense of foreboding about what he was commissioning.

So far though, things are rattling along fairly well. A design he likes has been implemented and I am currently coding PHP the only way a designer can: badly.

It looks like the product will meet its deadline and its owner will send it live with not too many more worry lines embedded into her already heavily grooved forehead. And, if things carry on as they are, I will have quite enjoyed it.

However, after my recent catastrophe of all of the sites I 'look after' collapsing on me dramatically and forcing me to wade hopelessly through reams of code I had hacked my way through 12 months earlier, searching blindly for a seemingly unpresentable solution, I still feel mildly apprehensive about what I am committing myself to.

You see, the web isn't like print. There is no 'sign-off'. There is no final commitment. The web's versatility and flexibility for growth and development, means there will forever be reams of amends and additions.

While these are a web designer's bread and butter when employed, these issues are a pain in the arse when they crop up for projects you may have developed 6, 12, 18 months ago.

First its the ftp details.

And I'm buggered if I know where they are. Organised text file filed somewhere intelligent? I don't think so. Embedded in an email pages back in a disused hotmail account, rammed in between various adverts for viagra and instant degrees? More likely.

Then the files. So you want a new button created? Okay. But when I formatted my machine last week did I make a back up of all the fonts?

Did I bollocks.

You may have noticed that so far, my issues could have been resolved by a little more organisation.

True.

But then they ask for something that has taken them 2 minutes to think about and will take you 2 days to implement. And that'd be if I wasn't employed full time.

For my friends, who well know that I'm not all that happy with my chosen career and who broach the topic uneasily and add gently, in order to ease my frantic mind, 'in your own time' I'll oblige when I get the chance, happy to develop a few rollovers when I get the time.

For those clients that I had the unfortunate idea of donating my services for free in order to build my portfolio, things are a different matter.

At least things are dying down a little now. I have informed the majority of past clients that I no longer have the time for obliging them with my services for free (after, usually, ignoring their emails for some embarrassing length of time).

The reason that I feel so rubbish when I stare at another email saying 'could you just...' is that I feel I've let someone down before I've even started the amend. Those endless client amends where I kick myself for thinking 'I should have just done that initially'.

I wasn't thorough. My work wasn't perfect.

I made mistakes.

And my vague harnessing of the power of PHP has only enhanced this as what you see initially, unlike design, can certainly not relate directly to what you get - it can often take months to find a glitch in the code which means certain variables are not accepted, certain images wil not upload.
The idea that my work would be substandard plagues me. It echoes in every project I do, whispering quietly so only I can catch what it says but leaving me terrified that a client will overhear and the realisation will become crystal clear.

And for those clients who have never parted with any money, the issue is still the same. They have the same quality expectations, the same high standards. They still expect their product to function effectively and efficiently and look good. Money, certainly, does not mean everything. They have commissioned me for a working project, and that, no less, is what they expect to receive.

And if I was to produce a sub-standard project, or not attend to amends or errors, how would that reflect on me as a designer? Sure I could not include it in my portfolio. But the web is open to anyone. One small conversation with the site's new owner, 'who created your website?' and the answer could begin my downfall.

A visual confession.

That I'm not that good at what I do.