#thestruggle

or should I say #thesnuggle

[im-da-real-mvp]

NCDev

It was a dark and stormy night. 

Actually it was kind of bright out and warm. But my heart was dark and stormy, indeed. 

His name was “NCDev.” He contacted me out of the blue - added me on Skype. First thing he said was, “Hi.” 

Pretty typical - but I like to know where my clients found me (be it through my real life connections or my quite reputable online presence). Of course, I should have guessed it was from my online presence on a technology forum. I can quite proudly announce that my reputation, literally in numbers, will reach over 1,000 by the end of this month, putting me in the list of the top 100 more reputable users of the second largest forum in the world. Also meaning that I don’t really have a life and I spend my time conversing with people with ages ranging from 12 years old to 30 years old about computer security, website development, news and happenings, science, religion, politics, and personal health. 

But I digress. This guy contacted me for a job. It was quite a simple procedure (#tbt hills with white elephants). I simply had to create a universal control panel for business owners - something that would allow them to customize what functions they needed depending on what business they ran. His specific business was server load stress-testing. In other words, he ran a service that would send a distributed-denial-of-service attack to shut down a network (in most cases, a website). This is most commonly known as a DDoS attack, notoriously hated throughout the interwebz. Cue angry dank-memers below: 

Anyways, this guy contacted me for a job and asked for a quote. I blindly said, “Oh, shouldn’t be more than $600 total.” He sent me the list of things he needed to get done. Looked simple enough. I had a deadline of one month to do it from the 9th of May. That means it should have been done by June 9th. Also doable. 

Fast forward two weeks in. He asks for a status update. Me, being a genius web designer and Rafal being a genius web developer, didn’t start. We both knew we could finish it pretty quickly anyways. However, this guy was being a real a**h*le. He says to us, “Oh well we needed a working product by the 29th, just so you know.” 

Raf agrees because I never mentioned to him the due date. I mean, I rarely do. He gets it done on time and so do I, so there’s never a real need to mention a due date between us. At this point, our jimmies our rustled.

But cool and collected, I am. I stoically agree to the 29th after accepting my fate. 

The 29th comes. We didn’t finish. NCDev begins bashing our service and telling us how terrible we are at providing for clients. 

Oh wait.. let me check my online presence again. I’ve got over 400 HIGHLY SATISFIED CLIENTS. OUT OF THE 400 TIMES I HAVE BEEN GIVEN REPUTATION FOR MY SERVICES, ALL 400 OF THEM WERE POSITIVE. NONE OF THE NEGATIVE. I HOLD NO NEGATIVE REPUTATION. I AM THE ONLY MEMBER ON THIS FORUM TO HAVE SUCH A HIGH REPUTATION WITH 0 NEGATIVES, 0 NEUTRALS, AND 100% POSITIVES. 

Literally - there exists no member more trustworthy than I am. No member more RELIABLE than I am. Seriously - I am pissed off at this point. 

Screenshot: 

Not going to toot my own horn. Wait, yes I will. I’m pretty g*ddamn good at what I do and if you have a problem with my service, it’s not me, it’s you. 

Wait, here’s another screenshot FROM ONE OF THE SITE’S ADMINISTRATORS:

I did work for him as well, back in 2013. 

Either way, I’m fairly certain I’m just not going to contact this client after this week. I’m so done. 

[im-da-real-mvp]

College vs Web Development

Entering a school specifically cultured and created for business development and finance is a huge change for me. I always thought I’d do CompSci or something related to tech management, but this is such a far stretch for me. I’m truly in shock-and-awe in how fast life can change. 

But anyways, this blog is about web development and what changed after college. I’m not going to lie, business has been going slow. I haven’t been posting blogs because: 

1. 50% laziness

2. 40% college

3. 10% lack of business

I guess it’s better late than never, lol. Either way, I told all my clients I wouldn’t be available for the next month (starting February) and I never returned from my hiatus. Thus far, I have had four clients ask me if I was back, and one demanding my return. In my defense, I already finished the work I was supposed to do anyways, and whatever they wanted me to do would have been an entirely new project so I’m not at fault. 

But I digress. As you can probably tell from my previous post, I was accepted into Stern. How? I don’t know. Honestly. I really don’t know how. I wish I did know the crazy thoughts going through their mind. There were a lot going through mine, at least. Thoughts like:

1. “How am I going to explain to my clients that I’m quitting?”

2. “How am I going to sustain an income if I quit?”

3. “How do I pay 40,000 a year for tuition?” 

4. “Seriously, how am I going to explain to my clients that I’m quitting?” 

I guess I won’t, really. I’m too psyched to do anything else. #iamstern

[im-da-real-mvp]

#iamstern

[im-da-real-mvp]

Reliability... a virtue

I was hired off-contract for a web dev job worth $3,500 total. 

(this did not include graphics work, and the Mitchell went with the $3,100 plan)

So there I was, a 17-year-old with $3,500 in potential money. My first thought? 

I first contacted my Jamaican friend under the artist pseudonym of "Amnesia Kush." He was about 18 years old, made some great designs and had good concept ideas. I paid him $50 for 5 design concepts (pretty much just like quick drawings of possible logos). 

Pretty small amount of money, but I needed a large turnover amount for the other parts of the project. He finished 3 concepts, proceeded to tell me how we had a deal for ONLY 3, and then refused to do the rest. Mitchell, the client, didn't like any of the concepts. 

As you might think, I wasn't very pleased about it. 

So I hired someone in High Tech to do it. (Tangent: I hired another person in High Tech before. Underclassman - apparently very good with graphics. Paid $40 for a quick logo, got the worst quality 5-minute job I've ever received. And he had the nerve to tell me it took him 3 hours of work. I may not be a graphics designer, but I USED to be one). The guy I hired contracted someone in Russia to do it first. She didn't come through. He then asked his friend to do it. She didn't come through either. So now, at this very moment, I have nothing done and the due date was on November 28th. Miraculously, Mitchell gave me a small extension. And it's due by the end of tonight. 

By now, life is literally telling me: 

I guess that goes to show that sometimes things don't go your way. I used to have pretty good luck with getting things done. I mean, I aim to be responsible for my clients and my job. But I guess I couldn't have seen this one coming.

#shrekt me. 

#shrekt me exhibit B

#shrekt me exhibit C

No money, only tears. 

Read more about it here.

[im-da-real-mvp]

Client Communication Problems

Sometimes I wonder how people even make it out of school. I wonder how some people can even survive with the amount of common sense they have. My job makes it very easy for me to wish terrible things upon humanity. 

In some ways, my job is comparable to customer support. It's more of a mix, really. Customer support mixed with technical support mixed with sales support mixed with sales mixed with marketing mixed with development mixed with manual labor. 

I pretty much run a website creation empire in my specific niche. And I can tell you it's probably the worst job anyone could ask for. If it weren't for the cash involved, I'd probably just stop. But I need money, yo. 

The most difficult part of my job is communicating with clients who can't get their stuff straight. There's NO need to spend four paragraphs explaining your entire business plan to me. I'm a website developer. I don't care if your business succeeds or fails, and I don't have an opinion on whether or not I think it's going to work (although it probably won't because you're stupid). At this point, my jimmies are pretty rustled. 

And once my jimmies are rustled, I'm not very happy. 

It's not difficult to get straight to the point and tell me what you need. It's really not. I have a hard enough time dealing with school and parents. I'm not going to listen to you for 4 hours straight talking about how great your life will be once your business succeeds (which it won't, because you're dumb). 

And then once I start working on your project, you come up with 15 more features to incorporate and expect me not to raise the price. NO, THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS. You get what you pay for and maybe a little more if you're cooperative. 

As someone who works in a field where communication is key, I can tell you that it's near damn impossible to NOT facepalm when you realize 99% of the people you talk to are definitely not well-equipped to be a functioning human. 

My face ^

But there's really only one thing I love about this job. Coincidentally, it's the one thing I also hate. 

I can proudly say I've met a South African hacker who deals more computer data than Microsoft, a Puerto Rican Satanist who hates Christianity with all his heart, an Australian who lives on a farm, a Saudi Arabian who has more money than anyone I've ever known, an Indian "freelancer" who simply contacts me to do his jobs instead, and many more interesting people. 

I guess it's a diverse job with a diverse world.. but: 

I'm quitting as soon as I find a real job. 

[im-da-real-mvp]

Blogs 4 Grade-sus

Similar to the popular weight-lifting slogan, "Reps 4 Jesus," "Blogs 4 Grade-sus" represents my challenges as an underdog, not in the world of weight-lifting, but in the world of using English effectively as my second language. 

Well, maybe not JUST that problem, as I'm sure there will be times I will veer off into another story that I'd like to share somewhat related to what I was explaining. 

So for my intro, I'd just like to say that this blog will basically be about me complaining about my petty first-world struggles as:

- a high school student struggling to keep up with his genius peers

- a full-time web developer and UI/UX engineer struggling to keep up with his lack of time

- an asian guy living in a world that so many people claim to be racially equal struggling to keep up with racism 

- a wanna-be bodybuilder without the right genetics, struggling to keep up with the 6'3, 240 lbs guys in his gym

- an online entity who manages a team of developers struggling to keep up with his own reputation

And today, I guess I'll be starting off with explaining a tiny bit of what goes on in the busy life of Jonah Chang.

5:00 AM - Wake up, turn on my computer, answer client emails & concerns

6:00 AM - Prepare breakfast, call clients to reassure their product is being worked on

7:00 AM - Get picked up by friend (usually Rafal) to go to school

3:00 PM - Get home after school, answer client emails & concerns

4:00 PM - Begin web development work

7:00 PM - Answer client emails & concerns

8:00 PM - Begin homework

3:00 AM - Answer client emails & concerns, dispatch finished product to clients

5:00 AM - Wake up wondering why face is on keyboard

5:01 AM - Scramble to print out homework and answer client emails & concerns

Pretty much my entire life is governed by work and my own limited ability to do what I love, although sometimes it can get to be too much work. Obviously, sleeping 2 hours a night doesn't happen EVERY night, but it happens enough that I spend whatever free time I have during the day trying to get some shut-eye in. I remember there was a point in time where I slept a grand total of 4 hours during a 96 hour period of time.. This was between handling schoolwork and client work. I had about 8 cans of Monster Energy to keep me afloat and I can tell you that it probably shaved off a good 40 years off of my lifespan. 

You might think that I'm crazy... but it was all worth it. The thrill of being able to have my body function for 96 hours straight, do work non-stop for that long, keep my mind sharp and clear, was an insane death-defying challenge for me. I'm glad that I tried it because I'll never try it again. I must have slept for at least 24 hours after the ordeal. 

So after all that rambling, I'd like to say that this blog has changed its initial idea from complaining about my life to complaining about dumb clients I get on a daily basis. I might be posting more than I thought I would...