Monthly Archives: April 2010

Cool Business Cards

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This happened to me quite some time ago. I was asked to provide a little guidance in helping a new small business get connected to the web and help with setting up email addresses and web space. So I had been in and sat down with the two partners asked them about the company and what would be the ideal domain name etc. After this had been agreed I went away and started to get things ready.

So I popped back in to let them know the email addresses were now live and once they had connected their computers in they could use them. On this occasion one of the partners arrived in just after and had with him a folder of the new print material which had been collected fresh from the printers. He proceeded to talk about how “Cool the new business cards” were. I took a look at one and indeed they were quite fresh looking. I started to read the information and noticed the email address had been written completely incorrectly and so had the website url. So I calmed the party down a little and said ‘hey the information is incorrect, if you end up printing these out with the incorrect information there will be nothing I can do to correct the web site url and email addresses to make them match’. He replied ‘Oh yeah, don’t worry about that these are just the test prints. They look cool thought don’t they I think they’re ready for printing’. I looked at his partner, we realised this guy had absolutely no idea of the implications. It was quickly agreed that none would be printed out until the web/url information was verified correct by myself.

The IT Consultant

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Ever since I left the world of learning and started to look for work I’ve noticed a fascination with over hyping ones job role / title. I remember working for a large insurance company and one day everyone within the company department by department were given a new job title. Note this wasn’t a change in job or the tasks we were to carry out but rather new snazzy names. To provide an example the cleaner suddenly became a hygiene operative. I didn’t quite understand the reasons behind this must have been to make the staff feel better about their job I guess.

Whenever we would see an old college buddy we would ask ‘hey what are you up to now?’ and every old buddy you meet without question always claims to have a better job. Even if it’s not better the job title would definitely sound very exclusive. One person told me they were an IT consultant, which sounds brilliant. So I quizzed further “What type of things do you get up to then?”
“Ah well, lots of different things. I have to admit its not that exciting. I was in one firm and I was installing virus checks on all of there machines.” He said.
I couldn’t think of anything more boring so I asked do they not they have an IT department. He replied well yes they do but the IT department didn’t want to make a decision on which one to use so I was hired to work on a ‘security initiative’ with them.

The point I’m trying to make is no matter how snazzy our job role title is we’re all just hygiene operatives at the end of the day.