The price of being nice

It never ceases to amaze me... clients will never remember the favors that you do for them. I cannot remember how many new features and requests I have agreed to insert into the system without an Impact Analysis document. Yeah.. everybody talks differently when they need something from you. I should have been a lot tougher back then... I shouldn't have given a lot of things for free... should've kept a stack of Project Change Request Forms just beside my IN/OUT document bin on my desk so they'd get intimidated.

But what the hell can you do?... Really? I was trying to build a good.. actually.. great relationship with them and dammit it really was going ok. When they ask something from you, you evaluate the impact to the sched, budget, etc. against the business process that is driving the request. Is it really gonna be a necessity? Can we phase it in the next cycles? The sad part is sometimes, bottom line really is... the slogan comes into play. We wanna do this for them, so they know that we really are a partner, not just a vendor. And that we are capable and willing to go the extra mile with them, if that's what it takes.

And it's not really a problem doing stuff for free... in the interest of building a great relationship with a client. I just wish, for the love of God, that they remember it and cut me some slack when I slip. Customers can fucking pound on the table for something and will twist your arm like a dripping wet towel for a fix and when you send the fix... it takes them a goddamn month before they apply the stupid patch. Delays are ok.. as long as it's from their end.