Rant: What to do when you’re talking to a moron

Hang up the phone. The sooner, the better.

I am a web designer and got an email from a guy about a website asking me to call him the next day. He didn’t provide a phone number in the email, and stated that his budget is $250,000. Sounds pretty bogus, right? Well, I give him a break and email him back to say that he didn’t leave a number in the email. So he emails back with a number, and I think ok, well maybe this is a legitimate person who just pushed the zero key too hard when entering his budget. After all he forgot to list a phone number, so it’s not to much of a stretch.

So, I call him back the next day. And this paranoid person answers the phone, “Hello”?

I say, “Hello, I’m looking for A***L”.

“Who’s calling”, the voice asks.

“My name is J****M from C****O. I’m calling for A***L at his request”.

“Who?”

“J****M, from C****O”.

“Oh, yeah, yeah. How are you?”, the voice asks.

“Is this A***L?”, I ask.

He doesn’t answer, and instead starts talking as if that was an answer to my question.

So he’s calling about a website and wants a price. I ask what type of website, standard, CMS, e-commerce, etc. He says he doesn’t know. I give our prices for a few packages, and state that we use WordPress for CMS and e-commerce. He then launches into a lecture about how Magento is taking over the world, WordPress sucks, and I had better reformat my entire business to work with Magento. Seriously, he’s telling me how to develop websites. I’ve won dozens of awards and have been in this business for a long time, and I think I’m entitled to a lot more respect than this tool was offering. I am definitely egotistical when it comes to my work. I embody the typical artist who cannot be told anything by anybody, especially some irritating know-it-all who has not accomplished a tiny fraction of what I have in the web design world. Despite my attitude, I will always listen to any talented designer’s opinion, whether I agree with it or not. But this guy was not a professional designer, and most certainly never produced a single award-winning website. In fact, he’s not even in the web design business at all; he sells wholesale gardening equipment. So, where does he get off telling me how to be a web developer? The nerve! But I digress…

Back to the plot. In a failed attempt to display his knowledge of web development platforms, he says that WordPress is so worthless he’d pay $1k for a WordPress site, but $50k for a Magento site. So then I concluded that his $250,000 budget wasn’t a typo, but a bullshit lie intended to make himself look like mister big shot. Really, anyone who would brag about paying $50k for a simple e-commerce store is either very foolish, or pathetically attempting to impress people with dollar signs.

But the saddest part was that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise with this guy. I’m not in the business of educating people about web development, so I didn’t bother even trying to inform him that WordPress is used by such companies as Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, LaIsla Swimwear and many other top brands. It would have fallen on deaf ears anyway. If this guy wants to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a Magento site, who am I to argue? The reality is that I’m more than happy to develop on Magento. It doesn’t matter to me, so long as I am paid for the work. But I couldn’t even get a word in to say that! It never ceases to amaze me how people are their own worst enemies.

At that point I realized this guy’s head is so big he can’t possibly hear me through the vastness of that bulbous sphere. So, I just hung up the phone. I don’t have time to be insulted and talked down to by some random guy spouting off opinions as if they’re facts, and who clearly has no business instructing a professional web designer about anything related to the internet. Pompous? I think not. Just tired of dumbass sales people over exaggerating their means and trying to come off like they know anything about web development, let alone more than me. I can’t wait until their is a required certification for web designers. It just might eliminate these idiots who think that just because they read an article on Yahoo’s homepage about web trends that they know anything about web development.

Another thing I’ve learned, that I wish others would realize, is that when it comes to web development it’s all too easy to spot the ones who know nothing. They talk the most. The sad thing is that they don’t know how obvious it is that they know nothing, so they keep talking, making themselves look even less knowledgeable. I’m sure that’s true for every profession. If you don’t know something, don’t even bother trying to fool people into thinking you do. It never works.

And I’m not knocking Magento at all. It just doesn’t serve any purpose to my targeted clientele, which is why I generally do not use it. Different platforms serve different purposes, and any experienced developer knows that. Another thing they would know is that the real key to creating an amazing site is the talented designer behind the works, not the platform they choose to develop on.

Rant over.