Why make excuses?

As much as I try to avoid the internet trap of constantly reciting buzzwords and cliches, I realised during my recent sabbatical that I’ve fallen into one of the most common habits of anyone working on the net…

Making excuses…

When I buy a new household gadget, like the vacuum cleaner and washing machine I recently purchased, I expect to just plug them in and go. And the vacuum cleaner, despite only costing £30, has actually been pretty enjoyable, and made cleaning up during my house move fun. It’s small, light, bagless, and has enough suction to pick up anything I need it to. Plus it makes a noise akin to a jet engine on take-off. Meanwhile the washing machine cleans clothes, and has a timer to let me know how long before it’s ended. They’re not the best, most expensive, or coolest gadgets, but they work.

Which is why it’s a shock to get back to explaining the reason a website doesn’t work properly is because of deadlines, or developer problems, or integrating technology, or the server caching, or one of the other 100 stock reasons why things don’t always run smoothly. Even the best sites experience niggles and occasional problems, and it seems to be accepted because ‘it’s the way the internet is’.

I’s probably a hang up from the days that installing even a game or small programme on your PC took days as everything conflicted, followed by the two hour wait for a page to download from a site in the glorious dial-up era. But every time an excuse is made, it makes it more acceptable for things to continue in the same way.

There’s no reason for a lot of problems. Adequate hosting and server space, proven software solutions, and good developers are all out there. You just have to use them, and not make excuses if things aren’t going so well.

On a brighter note, my Zen Broadband account has been transferred, and worked perfectly from the moment everything was plugged in again. That’s how it should be, even if the delay was double by BT not issuing a simultaneous move code which actually worked! I’ll have to check my speed tonight to see if moving to within 500 metres of the phone exchange (from 3.34km away!) has made a big difference.