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Last week I was seriously considering disabling the “contact-me” page of this site. This was due to the fact that over the course of 3 weeks I received 4 messages that didn’t quite sit well with me. These messages fell into 3 categories:
- 2 messages were from web 2.0 ventures that were interested in hiring me to be a part of their web design team. As much as I like to receive offers like these, there is a reason that I ask visitors not to send work requests via my contact form: I just can’t fulfill them. I started a business with my friends because I don’t have time to complete entire web projects or handle the logistics of freelance work. Please, if you want to hire my skillset, use the avenue I have offered and hire the whole team at Guava Studio. As much as I hate to turn down work, I have no other choice.
- 1 message was from someone looking for advice related to his work. The topic was something I do know a lot about and I would have liked to discuss it with him, but I wasn’t crazy about the idea of doing consulting for free. That’s what it would have been. I offered to do the consulting for a fee, and he respectfully declined. No hard feelings; he understood my reasons. The truth is I just can’t devote an hour to offering a valuable service for free when I could spend that hour doing other things that would be more profitable.
- Finally, 1 message was from a professional writer and blogger looking for my opinion on something I was writing about a while back. This person asked me to write a short article that she could post at one of her blogs and offered me a link in return.
This was the message that got me.
The topic was good, and it inspired me to write. I decided it would be a great idea to make a PDF as well as a blog entry so it could be easily shared. It took me a whole week to find the time to sit down and really focus, but I managed to write a whole two pages worth.
When I submitted it to said person, after posting it on my own blog, I figured she would be really pleased. After all, I ended up putting more work into it than she was expecting. Sure, she told me beforehand that she wasn’t looking for a lengthy article and she didn’t need a PDF, but I figured that considering the kind of service I was doing for her, she would be okay with a few details.
Boy was I shocked when I received her reply. It amounted to, “sorry, I wasn’t looking for a lengthy PDF and since you’ve posted this already at your site, I definitely can’t post it at mine now. I hope you understand.”
No, I don’t understand.
Please, and I’m not just saying this for myself; please don’t go around asking favors of people and being completely ungrateful when they actually try to please you. I didn’t spend hours writing an article to be told it couldn’t be used because I (gasp!) posted it on my blog. I didn’t even get a simple mention; all that was necessary was something along the lines of, “hey, this poor sap at christianmontoya.com wrote something for me, and even though I won’t follow through with my end of the deal, you really should go check it out” with a link or something. Goodness, I could have spent that time studying or working on websites or something… anything other than doing work that would go unappreciated.
So for future reference, and so that I can still retain some confidence in my belief that my contact page is really valuable, please try to understand: just because I blog often, doesn’t mean I have a lot of time on my hands. I don’t actually have any time on my hands. I have my classes which take up the majority of my time, plus 2 jobs which take up most of the rest, and then a little bit of blogging which I can only do as long as I enjoy it and I can make a little bit of money to cover my hosting costs. I’m blogging now because I’m giving up some sleep, something I learned to do in my first year at Cornell. To give you an idea of how busy I am now, I had far more free time during the summer when I was working 40 hours a week at my internship and 10 hours a week freelancing. If you send me a message, it will probably take me a couple days to reply, and if you ask for some of my time, I can’t promise I will be able to give, but most of all, if you ask for a free lunch, you won’t receive.
Now please put my contact form to good use 
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10 Comments
Responses to my articleBut you have time to write crap like this? Use some of your crap generating time to do some freelance work, or talk to a person. It might help that wildly inflated ego a bit.
People need to stop coming in here and telling me my ego is inflated. It just isn’t true. If that is all you get from this entry, you just aren’t getting it at all.
“Getting it?” What exactly aren’t we getting? Every post you make is just pathetic self-aggrandizing garbage. 4 e-mails in 4 weeks and you whine about it for an entire page? You even have time to categorize these 4 e-mails into 3 separate categories–yet, can’t possibly spare a moment to answer some guy’s question? Even the headline is abrasive.
If the issue was confined to this particular post, I’d just think you were having a bad day. Unfortunately, there seems to be a pattern of repeated idiocy. I’m really surprised people (myself included) continue to return. I guess it’s like watching a human train wreck. It’s horrible to behold, but for some reason we just can’t stop staring.
So keep up the ridiculously self-important posting, and I’m sure your blog will continue to benefit. Just get used to being reviled.
I think lots of people have helped others, including myself. But there is a time when you need to find the balance, and making your own business work. Of course, I think answering to a valid question which takes maybe 5 minutes I can understand. But in the end you decide!
I would also make that guavastudio website to have a working e-mail address and a summing up of services offered. And of course, add on the montoya site a small notice about the guavastudio and a workwithus@[…] mail or link.
I think anyone that reacts (he/she is not alone in doing this sort of posts) this way is over the line. Why dont they go somewhere else? Who needs comments like these: they are negative, too personal, and arrogant. No one minds that you think for yourself about a piece of writing but then again keep your criticism constructive. Just keep in mind you hurt people’s feelings.
Ok, constructive. Christian is obviously talented. That is not up for debate. I wouldn\’t have come to his blog in the first place unless I had found something useful. My problem is resolving his \”being a Christian,\” with posts that really strike me as being somewhat conceited. This is the part that angers me.
I believe in self-promotion; in the straightforward confidence a person has in his/her abilities. This post, however, feels less like confidence and more like desperation.
If I hurt his feelings, then I\’m truly sorry. I just wanted him to realize that he doesn\’t need to be so relentless in reminding us of his talents–let them speak for him.
Sargon, I should not have to explain myself as much as I will, but I really do want you to understand what I am trying to say. I’m trying to be transparent here and not as blunt as I have been in my previous entries. Try to bear with me.
The first 3 e-mails did not make me mad. They were not disrespectful. I was actually okay with them. The only problem was that the first 2 disregarded the disclaimer on my contact page (the one that says, do not contact me here for work), and the third was asking for consulting (as in, it specifically said, I don’t want you to blog about what I am asking you to tell me, but keep it private to e-mail; that’s called consulting, and people get paid for that). The only e-mail that made me angry was the fourth, because after I did put the effort into helping the person, they shocked me with an extra stipulation that I’ve never heard of anywhere else in blogging; that I can’t blog an article that someone asks me to write for another website. I’m sure it happens, but I just don’t work that way, and I would have appreciated being notified of it beforehand. I really did spend hours on it, and I even had some friends review it before I submitted it. I shouldn’t have to say it, but I was really down that day when I was told it wouldn’t be used.
You might see me as arrogant but I’m just a young guy trying to do good things. I don’t appreciate all the criticism I get for it and I sure don’t appreciate everyone who thinks I am talking out of my ass just because I am 21 years old and still in school. If you find my site to be a train wreck in the making, then please, keep watching. I just might get everything back on track before you know it.
“I just wanted him to realize that he doesn\’t need to be so relentless in reminding us of his talents–let them speak for him.”
That’s actually really good advice; I’ll follow it. Thanks.
“I would also make that guavastudio website to have a working e-mail address and a summing up of services offered. And of course, add on the montoya site a small notice about the guavastudio and a workwithus@[…] mail or link.”
We have a full site built in Rails that is ready to launch, but our Dreamhost server doesn’t seem to be able to support it. It’s a real dissappointment… the site just won’t load because Dreamhost’s setup (Apache + FCGI) is way too slow for Rails. We are still trying to figure out what to do, but since we have a couple clients right now, we couldn’t possibly take on work anyway. Maybe we will have the site ready in time for CSS Reboot; that’s good advertising
I’m sorry that some of your readers have such a skewed perception of you, Christian. Whoever Sargon is, obviously had issues with the whole concept of a Christian actually experiencing feelings and stress. It seems like he may consider himself more knowledgeable with what being a Christian means. In any case, I know how little time you have to blog and work on your web stuff and yet, how many simple questions you answer from those readers who need quick and simple advice and are not trying to rob you by getting free consulting.
Just letting you know that not all your readers assume you’re a pompous jerk. A lot of them are probably giving you the benefit of the doubt that your time is just as valuable as other bloggers’ and web designers’.
Thanks for the kind words Foxy, even if you might have a little bias
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