The Real Problem

I am here to fix a problem; something has gone wrong with the installation of software I wrote, and I’m here to make it work. My goal is to produce the stream of documents, PDF files, emails, envelopes and labels that engulfs my client.

It is no one person’s fault that things aren’t right. It is very much like an airplane crash – one small thing went wrong, and while that was being addressed something else cascaded into being, and now here we are, ten o’clock, staring at a growing list of matters-that-must-be-resolved, some of them mine, some of them the client’s.

Panic sets in, which is a good thing for me, because I am stubborn, tenacious, and I write things down.

I tick off my list three items that indicate serious problems with the host system.

The client has no one to fix these problems.

The client is panicking.

But I see my job clearly.

The first priority is to get the client calmed down, to make them comfortable with the idea that problems will be fixed in a methodical way and 9unspoken) that screaming isn’t going to help.

As usual, it is a people-problem rather than a technical problem.