They say that no good deed goes unpunished. If recent experience is any indicator, they are right. Girlfriend S.'s godmother works for the parish office at St. B's Church nearby. Hearing that they were in need of a web site on the cheap and that they were talking about asking Girlfriend S. to design it, I decided to get involved. I should have known better, but, I'm an ex-altar boy and I have a soft spot for Catholic parishes in need of some IT guidance.
These people have NO clue, absolutely none. They want everything and they want it yesterday. They want a river of dynamic content that changes at the whim of every school and parish committee head. To help accomplish this end, they have designated K., one of Girlfriend S.'s relatives, as "web master". Thing is, K. has absolutely no background in web page design, much less how to run an Apache web server on the Linux operating system. K. is a very nice person and eager to learn, and I have no doubt that she could master the fundamentals in time. Girlfriend S. and I have suggested that K. take some community college night school-type computer technology classes to get a little hands on experience.
Girlfriend S. and I thought that this sounded reasonable. Given that K. is a stay-at-home mom with three small children, I would think that she might like leaving the kids with her husband and get out of the house one evening a week. She gets a touch of cabin fever sometimes, being stuck at home with small children all day.
This suggestion does nothing to appease the powers that be at the parish, however. Today, the suggestion was made by one of Girlfriend S.'s other family members who instigated this situation that "K. is busy with three children and may be too busy to take classes."
This was accompanied by the question "why can't she just watch you two put together the site so she can edit it?"
Oh, if only the web were that simple.
They're not paying me enough to do this (yes, some money has changed hands) -- but thank God for that. Since we're talking a whole web site for an amount that would probably pay for a dinner for Girlfriend S. and me, I can afford to keep the situation at arms length. Since Girlfriend S. is related to some of the players involved, she has to be more involved. I will always be there to support her (emotionally and with computer expertise), but, I know she would like this whole thing to go away too.
said drgeek
on 2003-06-17 at 9:32 a.m.
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