This morning while I was taking a short break from a project I'm working on I was browsing TechCrunch and saw an article on a freelance project website and decided to check it out. I cruised around the site a bit and stumbled upon the following gem in the freelance writers category:

i want a blogger to write 10 blogs, terms: 400 words or more post them on 10 blogs i will give... payment after every 10 articles. bid only if you agree and can write proper english.

Apparently, this person needs someone to write articles for blogs in proper English because s/he can't. My question, and this is entirely rhetorical, is whether the advertiser would even recognize proper English if it came through their inbox. 

Ok, aside from this blog I host a couple of high profile websites. Sites that more than a few people notice when they are down. So, when they are down it makes my day not so great to say the least. 

A couple of weeks ago it became clear that the traffic on my primary server is at the point where I needed a little more firepower. I got support to switch me over to a new machine pronto. Once the old machine was empty I called to have it taken down, and the guy who answered asked me if I wanted a refund on the pro-rated amount I'd paid, or just apply a credit to my account. I asked for a refund. 

A week later I checked and couldn't see the refund. Oh, well, they probably gave me a credit, right? Wrong. So I called to check and was told that they don't do pro-rated refunds. Whatever, the amount of the refund would only have been $36. That's about a trip to Chuy's. What really gets me is that they throw out "I'm terribly sorry that you received the wrong information, but our policy is blah blah blah." 

This is not the first time I've been mis-led by this company. It isn't the second, or third either. My patience is about zero.

I really don't care about your policy. I really don't care about the $36. What I care about is calling in and getting the same information from every person I speak with. What I really care about is that there is someone tending to my server who knows what they are talking about and follows through. What I really want is accontability and predicatibility. After July I may be shopping for a new host because I have to believe that somewhere out there is a provider that still believes in service. 

I really don't think of myself as a pessimist, but sometimes it is hard to see the good in things. Sometimes the world just sucks the life out of you, and all you see is what is wrong. I've been going through a bit of that lately, and it is time to re-frame. 

Last week I discovered a big gouge in the paint of my new bike. I was pretty much pissed, and threw a mini-tantrum. The bike itself is fine - it just has this huge blemish. 

A couple of days later I was in Jack & Adam's and I told Jack about it, and he grinned as if I'd told him I won the lottery. In his mind a huge scratch in the bike was an opportunity for me. His response "bring it in and we'll touch it up for now. Then in February, when you can't ride because of work, we'll strip it down and send it off to this guy who custom paints bikes." Jack's view of the situation was that rather than be upset that my bike needs a paint job I should consider it lucky that I have an excuse to get my bike customized. 

It doesn't matter that I didn't want to get a custom paint job on my bike. It is going to happen so I might as well have some fun with it. My goal is to think more like Jack. Lemonaid anyone?