Tyler (Everything)

23Oct/070

Stream of Conscious Emails

I am guilty. Very very guilty. Do you work with people like me who do this? I am starting to think that it is very common in the software industry.

To explain the torture that I am providing people, the situation plays like this: You receive a question, you think quickly and realize that you have a clear and concise answer to the question. It may not be the answer you want to provide, you may be saying something to the likes of 'this will be very difficult and time consuming', as you continue to write and explain why this will be difficult you start to realize that maybe just maybe there is a really smart solution to the problem. Before you know it you are starting to explain your solution and maybe just maybe things won't be as painful as you originally estimated. Now you are rethinking and saying things along the lines of 'if we can find an elegant way to solve this one issue...' but you start to realize that there may not be a good solution to that problem. Now you are wondering is my design flawed? and this starts to find its way into the email by way of perhaps a quick little refactoring exercise in this location. You realize that what you have said is starting to make less and less sense, and that you yourself are confused and you are worried about just how confused your reader is. You finish off the email by saying that you are pretty confident that you can complete the work in a week. This date means nothing and you just picked it because it sounded kind of safe. You end the email by saying that you are concerned that you have confused the issue further and to please phone you tomorrow if there are questions. There most certainly will be.

So. Do you have any questions? I do. Why do I write emails at the very end of the day?

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28Sep/071

Why www.Chapters.ca is a terrible terrible website

There are few things that irk me like a terribly designed piece of software. The current subject of my wrath is the trendy, Starbucks© shilling mega-store Chapters. I don't dislike the place -even though the prices are more expensive in the store than they are on the website; how the hell does that work?- the atmosphere is alright, and the prices aren't terribly worse than Amazon.com... but one thing is just unacceptable: Their website!

I am currently looking for the book Chi Running which I hope will aid me in battle of shin splints -which I am sure that there will be many blogs about in the future. I was recommended the book in a thread on the Runner+ message board. My first thought was to go to the old standby: Amazon.ca. Of course they have it and the price is right $12.78. Unfortunately the shipping costs -shipping is free on orders over $39- will completely wreck any savings. So I head over to Chapters.ca and I can't bloody find it. Eventually I do find it but I have to take a little bit of a roundabout route.

Here is how to find the book 'Chi Running' on the Chapters.ca website:

  1. Goto Chapters.ca
  2. In the search box put 'Chi Running'
  3. When nothing appears get frustrated
  4. Open a new browser tab -you are using FireFox right?
  5. Navigate to Amazon.ca
  6. Search for 'Chi Running'
  7. Click on Chi Running link
  8. Copy author name: 'Danny Dreyer'
  9. Go back to Chapters.ca tab
  10. Under the Advanced Search panel > Author paste 'Danny Dreyer'
  11. Hit Submit
  12. Click on Chi Running link

There that is it! That is all that is necessary to do in order to find the book 'Chi Running' at Chapters.ca. This really makes me want to go shop there. Regardless I will probably end up there tonight to look for the book, and it will probably end up with me getting upset at some poor student who gets paid $9/hour because the book is $2 more expensive in store than on their terrible website. Can you tell that this scenario has played out before?

**********************Edit**********************

So I went to pick up the book at Chapters. They refused to match their own price on the website. I couldn't understand why they wouldn't. They said that it was like they are two completely separate companies. It was at that point that I mentioned that reputable companies will match their competitors prices and even give you price protection. Well this will mark the end of my relationship with Chapters... and Indigo... and Coles... and SmithBooks...

Hmmmm that doesn't really leave much in the way of competition does it? No wonder they aren't willing to match a competitor's price, there aren't any real competitors. In the online market they have to deal with Amazon, so they will lower their prices. Well I have some real reservations about a company that will not match their own price.

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