I'm done.

I'm done with client work.

I'm done with client work because the thought of dealing with one more client who needs to be hit (smashed, obliterated) by a clue stick, sends me into a depression so deep I can't see the sky.

The thought of dealing with a project manager who doesn't keep track of what's going on, doesn't tell his client "no, you can't have it yesterday," can't communicate effectively, delivers prerequisite work two weeks late but expects the rest of the schedule to be on time, and springs non-tested project launches two hours before an arbitrary unknown and uncommunicated deadline, fills me with an annoyance so strong that I lose the ability to suppress it.

The thought of feeling I've disappointed another client, nearly completing a project, but seeing a list of items that aren't QUITE done, not being able to be satisfied with work-well-done because the work wasn't done well because the end was a continually moving target, frustrates me beyond belief.

Beyond.

Belief.

I can't do this any longer.

I can't deal with clients who say "Did you see this? See how the links are at the bottom. What about that?" What about it? The links are at the bottom. What are you asking me? Are they in the wrong place? Are they supposed to be there? Are they incorrectly labelled? Are they pointing to the wrong pages? Should they be on the top? What about the links are at the bottom? What are you asking me to do?

I can't deal with clients who ask, "What is the status of X? What about Y? How about Z? What's going on with W? How's it going with T?" When I ask back, "Do you have this in list form? Have you sent me these tasks or asked me about them before?" responds, "No, I haven't sent you this list. I don't have it in a list." If you haven't asked me about it, nor told me about it, I'm pretty sure IT ISN'T DONE.

I can't deal with clients who send me bug reports that say "That thing on the front page. It doesn't work." What doesn't work? The links at the top of the page? The images aren't scrolling properly? The nav buttons don't highlight? The sponsor logos don't rotate? What doesn't work? And what browser doesn't it work in (because it's working just fine in my browser, and the other four browser types I tested, otherwise I wouldn't have said the task was complete)? "It doesn't work" isn't enough information for me to solve your problem.

I can't deal with clients who say, "The system is broken," and blame the software when EACH. AND. EVERY. TIME. we go over the steps the client did, the error is revealed to be USER ERROR. Doesn't matter. It's the system that's broken. The client doesn't stop to think or to READ THE ONSCREEN INSTRUCTIONS (the short, one sentence to-do item). No, it's the system that is broken.

I can't deal with clients who, though given my hourly rate, the number of hours I've worked and the work I've done, panic when my invoice arrives. They knew what my rates were before I started the project. They knew that my rates are on low end of high. I charge that rate because I get the work done in less time than the guy who charges 1/3 my rate, often at a lower cost, because I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING. Just because YOU don't know how to do it, doesn't mean *I* don't know how to do it. In fact, I DO know, and you asked me to do it.

I can't deal with being stressed when I send that bill. If I do $10000 worth of work, and we agreed on $10000, why should I be stressed and worried about the client's paying? Because the number of clients who have decided not to pay had been, until 2008, disgustingly high. I've changed my billing practices to fix the problem, but am still wary when I send that bill.

I can't deal with clients who ask, "How hard can it be?" when they don't have any clue about the effort involved. Yes, I make it look easy, but that's why the client hired me: because I can do the work. Just because I can do the work, doesn't mean that it's not hard. Certainly doesn't mean that it's not GOING TO TAKE TIME.

I can't deal with clients who want tagging because "It's a Web 2.0 feature," not because it actually ADDs to the site, not because it actually serves a purpose, not because it makes sense. "We HAVE to put it in. It's Web 2.0." You know, "It's Web 2.0" is not a reason to do something. Either you've forgotten WHY you should something, nor never bothered to learn.

I can no longer help incompetent people look competent. If you're doing a job you can't do, either learn how to fucking do the job, or get a different one. I'm tired of pulling someone else's ass out of the fire, saving someone else's butt. I'm tired of saving a project because six months ago the client promised their client a site would be delivered in three weeks, and they don't have anything to deliver, but that's okay, call Kitt, she's famous for delivering sites in three weeks or less. I'm tired of figuring out what the hell a client is trying to ask for, then having to redo the task three times because, "No no no, that's not what I said," when, yes, that was EXACTLY what you said, and I have the documentation to prove it.

I can't deal with helping other people achieve their dreams while my dreams lay dying. I can't wake up in two years and think, "Fuck, it's 2011. Where did the last four years go?" because I wasted it on everyone else's projects. I'm already wondering where the last two years went. I can't do this for another five years. Or two. Or one.

I can't.

I just can't do it any more.

I'm done with client work.

I left a client's office early this afternoon to make sure I made it to Velocity on time. I wasn't sure how bad traffic would be, and was pleasantly surprised to arrive early enough to change clothes and stretch slowly. Not having to drive in the fastest lane, but being able to cruise in the flow of the slower traffice helped me arrive calm, too.

To my surprise, there were 10 people in the class. I'm used to 4 maybe 6 tops, so the 10 people seemed a lot. I recognized a large number of the people, one of them being the tall Asian guy who rolled his eyes as I did at Friday's workout a week ago. There were a couple new people, including two women, a tall blonde and a short redhead, the latter being so wonderfully graceful I'm sure she has a dance background.

When a large number of people are in a class, instead of the small number of station, we have to do a workout-in-the-round where cones were placed in large oval and we did alternating body-weight exercises and aerobic work.

When I came out with my camera after a break during the class, both the coaches freaked out a little bit. One asked me why I had it out (to post pictures to my blog, der), the other asked how much free advertising Velocity receives from my blog (not much, but more than zero, all of my friends know about it!). Eventually, one asked if he wanted me to hold on to the camera during the workout. I didn't, but figured the other people might be a little freaked out if they thought I was taking pictures of them, so I relented.

The workout was

30s squat for speed
60s side slide to the right
30s hip pop (***)
60s carioca to the right
30s squat rotate
60s lateral skip to the right

About this time, my left knee started hurting, and I was hoping we'd go to the left some time soon. We didn't.

30s V-ups
60x lateral skip with crossovers to the right
30s alternating lunging backwards
60s running backward
30s hand walk around in a circle
60s side slide to the left

Yay! We're finally going to left! We also dropped down to less aerobic time.

30s lunge drops (drop into a low lunge, jump up and switch feet, dropping again)
60s carioca to the left
30s russian twists (I am built for these)
30s mountain climbers
30s run backwards
30s squats with jump
30s slide slide to the left again
30s reverse crunches (also known as hip lifts)
30s carioca again to the left
30s wide stance squats
30s skipping backwards
30s squats
30s running backwards

Phew!

I was sufficiently done at this point, but we still had another 10 minutes, so we all trudged over to the wall to pick up a med ball. We then did three rounds of 10 j-hawks, 2 rounds of 8 pushups with our med ball under one arm (so 4 sets total, for 32 pushups total), and only one round of plank hold for 30 seconds, left side plank hold for 30 seconds and right side plank hold for 30 seconds. That I was able to hold all planks for the full time gave me no small amount of personal satisfaction.

We did some unmemorable swissball work to continue the ab work before we were done.

During all of this, I noticed another class going on, with three relatively young men, most likely late high school, working out. I noticed they did a lot of technique drills, explosive work, a lot of sprinting, then some uninteresting weight lifting. The technique work was of interest to me. The class was the D2 class, which is normally taken by high school and college athletes during off-season to train for their sports. I have a credit with Velocity for a cancelled class I signed up for. I may have to sign up for a D2 class.

We all want to believe we're special. We struggle to find our way in the world, to find our place, to define ourselves. In the end, though we might want to be normal, to blend, to fit in, we also want to learn that there's something special, unique about ourselves.

Growing up, I struggled more with the fitting in than the standing out. I was good at academics, I enjoyed learning, so did it well. I wasn't able to necessarily to apply what I learned, but I was able, usually with effort, but with willingly spent effort, learn.

Except when things were HARD. But that's a different story about heart.

As I struggled with fitting in, I was often drawn to others who were the same. A small coincidence would draw me to another person as a moth to light. The sameness, no matter how artificial, was a balm, a salve, a calling that this is where I belonged, in this situation, with this person.

The older I become, the more sure of who I was, the comfortable I became with who I am, the more I was able to embrace my difference, the less overwhelming my desire to fit in became, the less needy I became, the less sure of destiny rearing its when an accidental sameness drew me to someone.

I've been reading Heather Armstrong's blog for uyears now, she's been writing for way longer. As with any dedicated reader of a blog which is open, personal and frequently updated, I felt "close" to Heather, in the sense I felt I knew her. In reality, it's an artifical comfort, she knows very little of me, other than perhaps a blank awareness of signing a donation check I sent years ago, or a hazy memory of the crazy woman who introduced herself at the Austin airport at SXSW last year.

Though the artificial (one-way) friendship is fake, the awareness of the parallels of our lives is not. She rejected organized religion far later than I did, but was driven to do well academically, lived in L.A., found the man of her dreams, is skinny without much effort, suffered unbelievable depression which was alleviated only by medication, had skin cancer. The list continues.

Each time I came across another similarity in the parallels of our lives, I was momentarily hit by a feeling of companionship, of destiny, of hey, this woman should be my BEST FRIEND, just look at how similar we are.

Until, I realized, no, we just have similar life experiences. And you know what? SO DO OTHER PEOPLE. Although aspects of my life are unique, if you look at the aggregate, my life is common. It's not a grand life.

I'm a statistic in so many aspects that it's painful to realize just how ordinary my life is.

When I write dates in file names, I use the format YYMMDD. I picked this style up from Yosufi, who used it to name files when Windows was the popular operating system, and you had only eight + three letters for file names. He would use two letters and the date, for the eight letters, and three letters for the extension. The two letters were meaningful to him, usually about the contents of the files.

  mg050302.doc
  mg050303.txt

I continued the numbering scheme because the date lists correctly when sorted in a directory listing. If I named the files like everyone else, they wouldn't list correctly. As an example, how about a database dump from this month, last month and the month before. If I used the format that most people seem to use, they would list like this:

  dump_011009.sql
  dump_020809.sql
  dump_122208.sql

That is clearly not in the order I want to see them, which would be in creation order. Worse, what if I had dumps from this time last year, too?

  dump_011009.sql
  dump_011108.sql
  dump_020809.sql
  dump_042908.sql
  dump_122208.sql

Now, which files, at a glance, are the most current? I can't tell. I can't tell at a glance if the database dump for this month happened. Better to use the year first, followed by month, then day. All of the files list correctly:

  dump_080111.sql
  dump_080429.sql
  dump_081222.sql
  dump_090110.sql
  dump_090208.sql

So, next time you decide to write a date in a file name use the year, month THEN day in the filename. Trust me on this.