September 11, 2015
Dear Everyone:
“Clancy” is a member of the Mount Diablo Chapter of
ARMA International,
possibly from the very beginning.
Some years ago, he was the Chapter President.
He had a
PhD in
Chemistry and was working for a
pharmaceutical
company back then. He
apparently “fell into”
records management, much as some of the rest of
us did.
That company was gobbled up by a larger company, which in turn got
gobbled up by a much larger, nationally known, pharmaceutical company.
And suddenly, “Clancy” announced that he had “retired” and was
starting his own consulting firm in records management.
That sort of thing happens in
Mergers and Acquisitions.
“Clancy” needed a website for his business and started one of his own.
Years later, when we needed someone to manage our small Chapter
Website, “Clancy” volunteered and soon became the Chapter President
again. He is now the
Pacific
Region Advisor for Membership and Marketing.
(Pacific Region includes
Arizona,
California,
Hawaii,
Nevada and
Utah.)
Since he is now in charge of Marketing for the whole Pacific Region, he
took over the Region’s website.
And then made an offer to the various Chapters in the Region to
include them in the overall contract with the website host company.
Which meant we could have a website at no charge.
Such a deal.
In the meantime, our previous Chapter President, “Callie”, resigned and
went romping off to Idaho with her husband and lots of
sled dogs.
And I became the new President.
At one of our first Board Meetings, I brought up the subject of
Succession Planning and who-would-be-the-vice-president-now?
I also pointed out that we should have some kind of a backup to
“Clancy” as the Chapter Webmaster, just in case, God forbid, something
happened.
“Clancy” agreed and that’s why I am now the webmaster for the Mount
Diablo Chapter. Everybody
still on the same page?
Good.
Recently, “Clancy” decided to move the “whole enchilada” to a new host.
He emailed us all the new User Names, and passwords, but the one
he sent me didn’t work. This
resulted in a “conversation” via email.
Imagine that “Clancy” sent me to pick something up at his office.
He gave me directions and the key to the office door.
But when I followed his directions, I turned a corner and found a blank
wall.
Me: There’s no door.
Just a blank wall.
“Clancy”: Turn the key to
the right.
Me: There’s no door.
No lock to put the key into.
“Clancy”: Try turning the
key the other way.
Me: I can’t turn the key in
either direction. There’s no
door.
“Clancy”: Well, I can’t help
you if you won’t make up your mind.
I finally suggested to “Clancy” that we look at it together when he came
to our annual Planning Meeting last month.
In the meantime, I downloaded the FTP that he had recommended.
For those of you who are not familiar with this particular species of
technology, FTP stands for “F---ing Total Pain!”
It also stands for “File Transfer Protocol”.
In other words, it is a small,
frequently-free-because-no-one-would-pay-good-money-for-it application
that allows the User to transfer files from one computer to another.
“Clancy” kept sending me screen shots of him using the FTP, which he
pronounced as “easy-peasy!!!”
But every time I tried to use it, I got error messages.
Finally, after the Planning Meeting, “Clancy” and I tried using the FTP
together.
Which is when I discovered that he had changed the password without
telling me. Once I had the
“new-and-improved” password, I was able to connect with the website host
computer as “easily” as “Clancy” had.
Until the next roadblock suddenly popped up.
I sent “Clancy” another email, with screen shots, and he declared that
he’d had the same problem.
Then he “updated” the User Name and Password and pronounced them as good
as new. So far.
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
Is all this work and frustration (i.e., dealing with “Clancy’s”
little idiosyncrasies) worth saving the Chapter the cost of having its
own website? In other words,
a monthly cost of (deep breath) $7.45?
Maybe not. But until I find
someone to be my backup for
the website, it will have to do.
Love, as always,
Pete
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