Bug Unit

Ok, so I am temporarily lending a hand at a company that shall remain nameless. The reason that the company shall remain nameless will soon become clear. However, it is a cautionary tale about government organisations, public money and failure to deliver. It is also a passionate exploration of drugs, sex, infidelity and proudly South African porn. Just kidding, it’s only about websites.

Ok, so I am temping at this company. Officially I am doing data updating or something, but actually I am a website efficiency expert, gained cheaply. Basically, their website is a mess, and they want me to fix it. I can’t. You don’t have to be an efficiency expert like myself to realise that I can’t, and I will tell you why:

1. They don’t have any more money. Like, none. The reason for this is because they have already paid somewhere in the region of £30 000- £60 000 for this website (figures range depending on who you talk to). Now, I might not know a lot of things about a lot of things, but one thing I know is if your website is a pre-packaged template from X-cart, costing £39.99, and the person you hired to build your website has limited html knowledge, no knowledge of other necessary languages like PHP, and has taken your £60 000 to make a website that doesn’t actually work, this is an example of inefficiency.

2. They are not able to ask the man why they paid him enough money to kill a goat, but they still have no website. This is because he prevaricates so much that interactions with him slow one’s heartbeat, if not the time/space continuum itself.

3. They are government funded and have no desire to change, or, in the great South African term, suck it up. They have a website that doesn’t work, they have no money to fix it, so they have hired me to get more suppliers to populate the site so that it doesn’t seem so sparse.

Let’s go through that process again: You have many many thousands of pound to build a website. Instead of hiring a developer, you hire someone with no knowledge of the languages needed to build a website. Allow this decision to stew for five months. Add a pinch of the fact that you aspire to be an e-commerce site, and you are not e-commerce enabled. Neither are any of your suppliers. Allow situation to stew for a further five months. Simmer. Do not link your site to any other sites, also give it an obsure unsearchable URL. Wonder why said site is not performing. Hire temp to get more (non—e-commerce enabled) suppliers to fix problem.

Serve.

Ah…you have to love the public sector.