High and Dry

Have you ever volunteered to help out and ended up with the entire job in your lap?

I think many people have had this experience.  Therein lies the story.

I am a member of a professional group with chapters all over the world.  When I lived in the Chicago area, I was on the Board of Directors in a minor role.  I found that being on the board gave me quite a bit of insight into the workings of the group and it was fun.

When we moved out here, I decided to join the local chapter of this same group. It took a while for me to get to a meeting because their web site was not being kept up to date.  When they finally posted a meeting and location I could find (not always an easy thing in this area), I started attending meetings. 

After a couple of months, I offered to join the board as an advisor (advisors basically make themselves available to help out when needed - a good way to start getting involved).  At the very first board meeting, I was asked if I would help out the webmaster.  He was apparently very short on time because of his real job and (as I had noticed) he was having particular trouble keeping the site up to date.

I said, well sure. I'm not a web designer and I've done very little html, but if he could show me what he'd like to have done, I'd be more than happy to help.

He was not at that meeting. 

I was added to the mailing list.  Once this guy found out I was willing to help, he said "great, I'm outta here!".  That's right, he simply dropped off the board and out of sight.  He answered none of my emails, told me nothing about the site, not even how to log in!   I was suddenly the webmaster with absolutely no way to do anything at all.

Now I was getting numerous requests to add things to the site. Daily emails from several people on the board.  And I.Can't.Do.A.Thing - nothing.   All I could do was email and say - "I'm very sorry, but I can't get on the site so I can't change anything."  It was all very frustrating. I keep emailing them saying - "Find this guy for me, tell him to at least give me the log in information!"

Nothing. Zip.

Finally one of the guys who had been "filling in" and updating the website when he had time, took a couple of days to show me how it all worked. 

I was blogging, so I knew a bit about blog publication.  But this was OLD stuff.  The site was put together back in 1998 and updated somewhat in the early 2000's.  Not only that, but the guy had hard coded every blessed thing on every page.  Apparently he had never heard of  creating little modules for things that are used everywhere and pulling those in when needed.

In other words it was a total mess.  It took me several days to put together the pages they wanted for meeting announcements.  I had to wade through so much crap, it was difficult to figure out what was part of the surroundings and what was the changeable information. 

Since that time, I've made a number of changes, all in the background.  I've cleaned up all the extra code on every page, gotten rid of outdated stuff, created a site map, and kept the site up to date with all the meetings. 

I've also pushed for a new web site.  One that is up to date.  I've pushed hard in a group that is more like a 2 ton block of lead than a board of directors.  Getting things moving took forever, there are more than a few who don't think it's necessary to waste time creating a new site!  But finally, in the last few months,  a subgroup has been created and is working diligently to get a new site designed, one that doesn't require a degree in computer science to update.

Of course I am moving on to another position as of this month and someone else will be taking over the web site headaches. 

Now you may be wondering, so what's this all about?  Why do we care? 

Well, of course you don't care, no reason you should. 

I'm blogging this because today I received an email from one of the subgroup.  She had been contacted by the former webmaster. She forwarded his email and this was a portion of what he wrote:

the website does not seem to be improved much

He is "generously" volunteering to come back and help out if he can be on the board... (being on the board also entitles people to credits toward keeping their professional certification active)

I have never met this man and I would like to keep it that way.  I have very forcefully stated my opinion of his reliability and said I would not be willing to work with him at all.  Nor do I recommend anyone else work with him. 

I am astounded. 
 

Posted by: Teresa in Idiocies at 07:51 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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