BEN? BEN? GOD HELP US.

This is the blog of two developers stuck in a room with Ben, a sales manager who is supposed to be an "IT Manager". He spends his day on the phone, having loud conversations, customer service calls, impromptu meetings all right here in this room... A good comparison would be like trying to write code in the middle of a 24/7 sales call center. Imagine trying to focus with a TV up real loud blaring infomercials all day. Also, this entire office is a warehouse/storage area they turned into an office space. We like to call it the basement. No windows. Fluorescent lights. Hell.

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Goodbye Joel.. They wouldn't let you work from home so you quit. And now they are outsourcing the website to you. Congratulations. I will now be alone :(

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This is "box storage". Since our office is a warehouse this is where we store stuff now. Tiny little cubby hole above the shitter.

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Ben's New Hire

Our previous employee would always take pictures of our products for the salespeople with a "high end" camera we have. These would be then sent to customers. The previous employee would do social media management, google adwords, print design, take pictures, etc etc.

So, the one sales guy comes in and asks this new hire to take a photo. She goes into the lightbooth for the high end camera and takes pictures.

1 hour later the salesguy comes back: Salesguy: "hey that picture turned out excellent".  New Hire: "Thanks! but guess what i took that with my own camera" Salesguy: really??!! New Hire: "yea with my new iPhone"

............. no words

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Jeff's phone call.

Jeff: Hello

Sales associate: I was going to email you, but like everything is down so I can't.

Jeff: Internet?

Sales associate: Yeah I think, it says not connected to the internet on the computer in the box on the right.

Jeff: ::pings internet IP address:: Yes, you don't have internet.

Sales associate: Well Pandora stopped playing music for us too, can we turn that back on without internet.

Jeff: Not happening

Sales associate: How do we fix the internet?

Jeff: You don't, the cable company does. You can call them but it will probably be back before they answer the phone.

Sales associate: Can you call them?

Jeff: No.

Sales associate: OK I guess we will just wait.

Jeff: Sounds like a plan.

[benjamins-office]

Recent Phone Page

JEFF?

Jeff: Yeah.

Girl: Can you come here.

Jeff: Yeah.

Jeff: Yes?

Girl: I have to download this program from the bank, and I go here and hit download and it says run, save, or cancel. What should I do?

Jeff: Hit run.

Girl: And then ?

Jeff: Read the screen.

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I didn't sign up for this, I just wanted to write code!

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People Skills: What is it that you do here, Ben?

[benjamins-office]

wow thats messed up.

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He is lucky he didn't have facebook up

He is 

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Arggghhh

j3ffrey:Joel

j3ffrey:you work for the empire.

j3ffrey:You think you are doing right helping them.

j3ffrey:But in reality, there are 2 evil fuckers running the entire thing

j3ffrey:and every so often

j3ffrey:someone figures it out, we'll call that person han solo

j3ffrey:freelance

j3ffrey:they don't care what the empire does

j3ffrey:as long as it doesn't bother them

j3ffrey:and they aren't going to help the empire out either

j3ffrey:<- han solo

j3ffrey:well

j3ffrey:no im luke skywalker

Jo3l:hahaha

j3ffrey:i want to blow up the deathstar

j3ffrey:you are like lando

j3ffrey:the black guy

j3ffrey:he helps them

j3ffrey:but regrets it later

Jo3l:im not a star wars guy

Jo3l:but that shit is funny

[benjamins-office]

We just lost all of our organic searches because a person working from home can't be trusted. We need to get a SEO guy to sit in a seat here in the basement, so they can "know" he is working. Even though they don't "know" anything about what any of us do

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Social Media Expert says something besides Twitter!

Her response to web problem. What we need to do?

Build a strong social media presence on different networks

Appeal to web crawlers by using schema markup

Create useful content to provide value to readers

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Benjamin .. FAIL

Unnatural links to your site Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to pages on this site. These may be the result of buying links that pass Page Rank or participating in link schemes. 

What does this effect? All

Oh Ben, head of our website, what have you done!

[benjamins-office]

Tomorrow..

It is 12am and all I can think about if I have to go back. UGHHH

[benjamins-office]

Jason Fried (37signals Founder) and Vooza CEO debate remote working

Should your company let its employees work from home? Vooza's CEO debates Jason Fried, author of "REMOTE: Office Not Required." Things get hairy at the end.