Imaginary Conversations: Part One

You don’t understand why this project is taking so long? You’re wondering why I’m telling you I’m not going to hit your specified deadline? No, thats not problem. I understand why you need to know these things.

The simple fact of the matter is that I haven’t yet perfected the build of my Time Machine and as such can’t seem to find a way to reclaim the time that your demands have placed on me. You see, when you sign off on a concept design (i.e. after the investigation, after the Personas have been built and tested, after the content has been structured and after the design concept has been finalised and agreed upon by you, I tend to actually get on and start building the pages that make up the site. Consequently, any time after this point is not an ideal time to inform me that the colour scheme and typography doesn’t match the brochure you’ve just this second told me about. Things like that tend to put a bit of a crimp in my day.

Further to that, going back to those halcyon days when we worked out exactly what imagery you wanted to use and we signed off what the textual content was going to be for each page I never envisaged the (count ’em) five subsequent total reworkings of the content or the (so far) three revisions of imagery. Of course, had I known the amusement and untold hours – nay days – that I spent restructuring the information architecture and wireframing the site content again and again no doubt I would have the foresight to apologise to you profusely for failing to hit the deadline you seem to believe it is possible for me to bend the laws of physics for me to hit.

Its a strange thing but I always understood that these laws of physics dictated that time could only flow forwards. Far be it from me to tread on the toes of such giants as Einstien and Hawking but I’m sure that if nothing else I did gain an understanding of the basic fact that time is a contiuum and that once that time is spent it can’t be unspent.

Just an excuse you say? Well, lets look at it from another point of view shall we? Lets say I was a dentist and you were my patient – a scenario amusingly (wistfully) reminiscent of Marathon Man, no? – if you came into my surgery and stated you desired to have your teeth straightened and your overbite corrected I would, like the keen servant I am, rush to your aid. Imagine however my displeasure if, halfway through the proceedure you told me that you didn’t actually fancy it after all. You decided that your overbite was quirky and cute. Should I gladly absolve you of your responsibility to pay me or should I turn my hand to another, slightly more brutal form of dentistry involving your teeth, my fist and the option of a large house brick?