General Discussions

**Servo888** · 07-20-2007, 10:08 PM

I love to program; I wouldn't say it comes naturally to me, but it does click in well. But my job is killing me - well it's mostly my superiors. The company I work for receives most of its orders from paper catalogs (~3/4 of sales), and has only been selling products online for the past 2-3 years. Our database is a proprietary e-commerce solution we paid a lot of money for a while ago - but it is very limited. We have so many projects in the queue right now - with absolutely horrible decisions going on from the managers. An example would be my current project - it was decided that to make our website more professional looking we needed slide out menus... So behind my back, they hired a freelancer to design such as system, but gave no thought as to how it would be implemented. The end result is a POS Flash menu that they think is the coolest thing in the world; yet it's been the worst thing to implement into the current system. Now adding a link / preview takes 10 times longer... Google search is worthless... And customer complaints will be hard to deal with.

All of my project managers have this fetish for Flash designs... It's ridiculous - our website does not look remotely consistent. We have pages that look nothing like our site - freaking customers out. Yet marketing thinks their brilliant ideas are going to increase sales... My biggest problem is we keep hiring these 'Web Designers' to create these 'landing pages' where we want customers to go... Yet all these designers do is give us an HTML page with a giant 1280x1024 JPG image as the background, and call it a finished product... No matter how many times I've tried to explain to these people that the designers are terrible, they keep paying them, and letting them give us this crap.

I'm just sick of it... I cannot handle the fact that the people pulling the triggers, and are coming up with these ideas, have absolutely no clue as to what's going on technically.

**mgraphic** · 07-20-2007, 10:42 PM

If you have some type of matrix system in place, take a little time to pull as many valuable reports you can get of how your site is driving or repelling customers. Numbers do not lie, it it can serve as your ammo to get the attention of the proper managers to take a serious look into the problem.

For instance, my boss used to decide how our website should be designed and function willy-nilly untill we got CoreMetrics and we can now see exactly how visitor reactions affect our traffic and sales and now we have a good successful and growing site because of it.

There is nothing more frustrating then having a so-called "team" with each person going thier own personal way.

**DaveMo~** · 07-20-2007, 10:58 PM

So while you're doing your job in developing the web site, the managers hire freelancers to do part of your job without telling you and you must make it work? Gee, I remember days like that when we were trying to run a professional intranet and it looked like a stupid monopoly game.

M's got a good point. Get the right ammo!

I hope you get some support for your end and the group becomes a team.

Dave

**angele803** · 07-22-2007, 03:50 PM

Wow, that sounds awful! I can understand what you are talking about though. People who are not familiar with web programming or web marketing or web usability should not be allowed to make decisions on how web sites should run!
I would find and print as much information as you can about how flash menus are largely ineffective (especially for a business site), how splash/landing pages deter customers and whatever else you can find to help prove your points about how things are not being done correctly.
When it comes to business and ecommerce, eye candy (flash menus and pages that contain just one big image) isn't always (dare I say EVER) a good idea. These managers need to figure that out!
If I was in your shoes, I might go nuts!

**ForrestCroce** · 07-22-2007, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveMo~

M's got a good point. Get the right ammo!

I hope you get some support for your end and the group becomes a team.

And if you need help finding "ammo," or good arguments to do things the sane way, tell us the specific issues and we'll all chip in with examples of when doing things the wrong way cost an employer, made the IT team work all night fixing the damage, broke other features, or made a project fail, along with links to "best practices" articles.

It sounds like you really want to quit your job and find another one. It's none of my business, but I've changed jobs a few times lately and can tell you it's very stressful. If you decide to give your current job another choice, you'll find a lot of help crafting arguments here.

Good luck, either way.

**EngAdven** · 07-22-2007, 06:11 PM

Don't try working for yourself.
Your Managers sound like most clients.
Offer them a low cost, well structured and accessible site that you know will work well and they'll go with an expensive, great looking but totally useless flash site every time.

**ADAM Web Design** · 07-22-2007, 09:22 PM

Look at it this way...if you're as good at building sites and programming as your side of the story paints you out to be, (and I'm not arguing whether you are or aren't...just saying if, that's all), you should have no problem finding clients and being able to work for yourself.

What you've discovered is a common scenario is most corporate environments...you've got out-of-touch management with its head up its *** dictating changes by listening to people they have no business paying attention to just because they can say and do pretty things. I call it Bell Canada Syndrome.

When you see that, there is no way to solve the problem that will benefit you....unless you're prepared to wipe people's asses and do away with your dignity (neither of which is worth it.)

Get out and either get another job or strike out on your own. You've reached your peak at this job.