Dreaded Favors Asked of Web Designers | Hacker News Reader

Dreaded Favors Asked of Web Designers

webdesignledger.com

29 pointsecaron26 comments

This "ew, people keep asking me for help" genre has been around for a long time, and I greatly dislike it. It's perfectly natural for people to turn to someone they know who knows about a topic. My father-in-law has answered my questions about cars for years. If there's something he can help with, he does; otherwise he tells me where I need to take it. Maybe I sometimes ask him for help that's actually a lot of work: that's not me being importunate, that's me not knowing about cars. Somehow he's never had any trouble helping me when he can and explaining when he can't. And when someone asks me about computers -- which they do all the time -- I'm delighted to return the favour. It's just not very hard to be a nice person who helps others.

What can sometimes be hard is setting boundaries in the relatively rare case of someone insisting that you help them to an inappropriate degree. Many of us admittedly need to learn how to do that better. But, a hint: whining in public about others' failure to respect the professional glory of your web designerness is no way to work on it. (Not picking on web designers here; programmers are worse.)

Edit: in fairness, the OP does offer some sensible hints (amid much self-centered snark) about polite ways to handle situations.

I agree; I hate these 'social faux pas' posts for web/graphic designers. I'm also increasingly beginning to hate this model of 'designer playing publisher' and abusing wordpress as a CMS for 'premium content' and buying/selling ad space. 1/10 times you end up with posts like, [insert quantity] things(outbound links) for [something].

The result is usually just a list of outbound links with some useless editorial commentary. Some sites (psdtuts, hongkiat) can pull it off, but others can not, which is easily discernible in how valueless each post is for who ever they're targeting (usually designers).

This sort of complaint is common to both web designers and programmers. The problem is that most people don't know anything about design/programming, and so they don't understand that it takes a lot of time to do.

Show somebody a patio that you built. They'll be able to see all the pieces, and how heavy they are, and how they all have to fit together just so; they'll be able to comprehend that it takes a lot of time to move all of those pieces around and make them fit together.

Show somebody the black box that is a website, or a computer program, however, and they can't even see the pieces, much less understand how they fit together, or how complicated they are.

That's very close to Parkinson's Law of Triviality, aka the Bike Shed concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality

Start explaining about the structure of the html document, how the css styles the document, how this part of javascript has that effect, and in no time people will have a better idea of the complexity of our work (and not a bit more understanding of it).

Somewhere there has to be a forum of lawyers who don't charge enough or exercise sufficient professional discretion where they regale each other with tales of how Cousin Vinny wants free legal representation again.

I have a couple lawyer friends, and I promise you this was a hotbutton issue for their profession long before there ever were "Web Designers". I've learned to steer conversations away from legal issues, even idly, even when it's clear I'm not asking for advice.

Thankfully, my sister is about to pass the bar and take a job in corp law, so I'll have a free resource that I have no compunctions about bothering (hey, if she's not going to babysit, she can at least review contracts!).

(Not-so-thankfully, she'll be making more than I do straight out of college. This bothers me in a very sharp and visceral way.)

Don't worry. In exchange for their salaries, corporate lawyers have to accept their lives sucking.

It's a problem for lawyers, accountants and doctors.

Except they don't have any of my sympathy because they have officially-recognized bars, certifications, and boards to ensure they are paid what they are actually worth. Because of this, the advice they get solicited for comes from respect, not because what they do "must be easy".

they have officially-recognized bars, certifications, and boards to ensure they are paid what they are actually worth.

Or to put it another way, to artificially erect barriers to entry that ensure they get paid more than they would in a freer market.

That artificial barrier also happens to screen out a lot of unqualified people - which would be lowering the market clearing price otherwise. I posit that these barriers have no real effect on middle and top tier professionals in these fields.

The top computer programmers also make as much as top lawyers and doctors - possibly more if you count entrepreneurs.

It's not so much a price / cost issue as it is a respect issue. Can you imagine how the legal or medical profession would suffer if anyone off the street could claim to be a lawyer or doctor and get hired for the job?

You know how sometimes you hire a guy from a hemisphere you've never even heard of for a project, and when he delivers, it's nothing at all like you requested, riddled with bugs, and randomly crashes?

Now imagine that guy representing you at a murder trial.

I like the barriers.

Yes, licensing regulations also serve a useful purpose. But having the details of those regulations determined by the guilds themselves (rather than external authorities) is a lousy way to achieve that purpose. Why do I have to visit a dentist to have my teeth cleaned, rather than a dental hygenist? Why can't registered nurses or nurse practitioners provide basic medical care except under the auspices of a doctor? Because the rules are set by groups that represent the doctors and dentists.

It's also worth remembering that plenty of indigent people in this country are effectively represented by 'that guy,' including in murder trials. Look at the cases of Calvin Burdine or George McFarland, both of whose court-appointed attorneys slept through their trials. Are those barriers really doing what you want them to do?

My sister in law is a doctor, and she's saved me thousands of dollars and tons of time over the years. Now when I get bitten by a tick she can just call in my antibiotics to walgreens. I'd happily pay her a consulting fee if she wanted. I wish more doctors offered round the clock 5 minute phone calls.

It's a problem for anyone whose work is based on offering services.

My dad is a contractor, and my mom is an interior designer. Family members, people from church, and random people alike assume that means that they can come fix whatever little problem they're having, or pick out drapes and furniture for their living room.

That reminds me of the time when a new neighbor moved in. The first thing he did after he mentioned that he was a doctor, was to inform us that he didn't want us coming to him for advice or prescriptions unless it was a crisis.

Later that year he came to me and complained that his computer was slow, and wondered if I could look at it...

So how much did you charge him?

You're not a professional until you learn how to say No.

It's the closest thing digital practitioners have got to a Bar Association, and that's not about to change any time soon.

True. It even happens to priests and pastors. You wouldn't believe how many people you've never seen or heard of before will look you up and call you, saying how much they'd love a nice little wedding in your congregation's stone chapel. When you inform these people that you don't consider yourself a justice of the peace, the waters are deeply stirred.

A lot of these items also apply to programmers. Although, I bet the list would be much longer than this since no one knows what programmers actually do.

Like when somebody asks you to do a certain task and say "it shouldn't take more than [x]", even though he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about!

Pertinent: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

"It'll soar like an eagle in outer space!" - God that line killed me :))

"So this design is perfect but I'm the CEO so I have to make changes..."

OH my but truer words have never been spoken.

Depressing and true. Its what makes me want to build a company which isn't freelancing.

In his right-hand sidebar he has some image-links to other comics about "roads-to-hell-for-freelancers."

One of them was titled, "create FREE Flash websites" ... except, on further examination it was not another spoof - it was an ad from Google: life imitates art!

The best way I can think of to get out of this situation quickly, and relatively painlessly, is asking this question:

"I get paid to do this kind of work. Why would I do this for you for free?"

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