Are we too nice?

Would we get further in this world, more quickly, if we weren't so nice? Tony and I are proud that we've managed to make a living for ourselves, working from home, having started working from home in about February 2008, but it's not easy, and we are not yet making a fortune - not nearly.

We see how much other people are charging for web design services, and other creative design or writing services too, and, although we have recently put our prices up a bit, we just don't think we will ever charge as much as very many people do. We know we are not getting too far too quickly like this, but, hey, we're nice people and don't want to charge people a fortune. Now if we're so nice, does that give us a reason to be upset if it's not appreciated? Not really, hey, because then that wouldn't be nice.

We do get upset sometimes, though, depressed, miserable, and wonder if we shouldn't be so nice - doing things for clients that were not part of the original requirements and not charging them for the extra bit of work put in; not moaning to clients after we've been sitting at a coffee shop waiting to meet them and have bought coffee for ourselves with sometimes just about the last of our money, then the client does not rock up; or, spending two hours (away from work/home and our computers where we earn our income) with a client who sounds so interested in what we do and can do for them, and then they either phone the next day to say they're going to consider a website at a later stage rather, or, we never hear from them again - and we just say "It's fine, don't worry, no problem." And we move on. The thing is, it's not really fine. It sucks. But we're nice people, and we rant and rave on our blogs about it, or to each other, which isn't really nice, but, hey, how does one get it out there that we're doing the best that we can, not just for ourselves, but for our clients too.

The sites we design are cheap in cost, not "cheap." We design sites that many other designers can design too, except we charge less, and you usually get more too. If people want to hire more expensive designers (because that must mean they're good, right?) we should really just put our prices up a lot more. But we can't. We're nice.

And you know what? - now that our rant is out of the way and we feel better, and even though this rant may not be viewed as "nice," we are going to stay nice. The few people that do remember us for it, are worth it.

© copyright Teresa Schultz 2010

We boil our drinking water here in South Africa

Not that we drink much water on it's own, actually, and we still find ourselves just opening the tap to fill a glass with water when we want to swallow a tablet, or mix it with cooldrink mix for the boys' school lunches, but we boil water quite regularly because we drink a lot of coffee. Thinking of coffee and tablets, and water, sometimes we will even let our coffee cool a bit, and use that to swallow a tablet - swallowing tablets usually calls for quite a large gulp, especially when there's large capsules involved, or pills that taste absolutely disgusting and dissolve in the mouth too quickly.

Apparently the drinking water in South Africa, from dams, is still relatively okay and healthy, so we drink it from time to time without doing anything extra to it - and it hasn't killed the dogs in the household yet either, so we assume it's pretty much okay. Doesn't taste too wonderful though. We really ought to start drinking more water - it's so beneficial for so many different aspects of life - not to mention survival, and I guess, if we do (start drinking more water), we'll probably buy bottled water from supermarkets, and we'll know it's been purified already, or, who knows, down the line we might get our own home water purifier - or, what's wrong with just boiling it (water from the taps in one's home) - isn't that enough to kill any germs? Baby's bottles are often cleaned and sterilized in just boiling water, so maybe it's enough to do that - but, hey, it's always so much easier, and yummier, to switch the kettle on, add coffee, milk and sugar to a cup, with boiling water, and sit back and relax with a good cup of coffee - so much better than swallowing tablets with cold drinking water from taps!

© copyright Teresa Schultz 2010

He hasn't had his coffee yet, is that okay with you?

Last night, the boys and I were looking at some photos of them taken about two years ago. As we clicked onto this photo of Basti, Basti piped up "I haven't had my coffee yet, okay???" We all "saw it" in the photo, and thought it was pretty funny, and appropriate.

It's a good thing when people can laugh at themselves. He doesn't drink coffee, yet, but Tony and I have to have a few cups a day. Just hope Basti's comment wasn't so easy to just let fall out of his mouth because that's how he sees Tony and I in the mornings before our first cup of coffee!

He's actually sucking a real burny sweet in this photo - a cup of coffee may have actually helped at the time to cool down that burn!

Speaking of coffee, don't you just hate it when you have a cup, are relaxing, get distracted, reach for another sip, looking forward to it, then feel upset and deprived when you notice your cup is already empty and you don't remember drinking that last sip? You were going to enjoy that last sip! Read this short little article I wrote on Xomba, about an idea about how this could be avoided.

© copyright Teresa Schultz 2010