SiteCrafting Blah Blah Blog
Nov. 15, 2006 at 10:39am
Two Dollars
Why going the extra mile always pays off
Two dollars is a small amount, but two is a magical number. Despite it's seeming insignificance, two represents the difference between doing a job, and doing it right.
One summer while I was still in college, I worked in a brewery in Colorado waiting tables. I recommend that everyone work in a restaurant at some time in their life. It teaches you a lot about life and service. While I was working there, I began to understand the value of such a small amount, and how much good work is worth.
If you don't know, servers (at least in the US) rely on tips as their soruce of income. In Colorado, I earned a paltry $2.25 per hour, and that was only enough to cover the taxes on what I earned in tips. Washington is a little better, because retaurant owners are required to pay the minimum hourly wage, unlike Colorado where tips count towards that sum.
Often, the difference between a great tip and an average tip is two dollars, and the same is true between average tips and poor tips. In a place like the one where I worked, the average customer bill was around $12 ($8 for dinner, $4 for a drink). When 3 or 4 people came into eat, they usually ended up ordering about $40 worth of food and drinks. On that total, a 10% tip is $4.00. A 15% tip is $6.00. That's a two dollar difference, but it makes a huge difference for the server. The actual value of $2 is small - sometimes I can find that much in the seats of my car, and it costs me more than that to do my laundry. The result of the extra $2 is huge. Your server is happier, and happy servers mean better service, increased patronage, and more satisfied customers.
What it comes down to is that the $2 represents a willingness to go the extra mile, or the difference between just doing something, and doing it right. Or the difference between doing something right, and getting it perfect. I've heard many stories about people that wanted to make a website - to help their business, to show off their talents, or just for fun - but they balk when they hear what their idea is going to cost. Many people miss the fact that it takes effort to do anything, and whether the cost of that effort is time, money, or blood and sweat, the difference between doing it right and not is huge.
This happened to me last year. For every day for about two weeks, and when ever I wasn't in class or asleep, I was working in my studio on a piece for my senior art exhibition. Every day I'd get up at 8:00am, and work until around midnight. I hated the piece while I was working on it because it was so much work, and took so much effort. But, I realized that I had come up with something that could be really good. And so I put in the effort to make sure that it was perfect, that every component of it worked like it was supposed to. When I was done, the only words that I could use to describe it was 'Wow.'
For all you developers out there, heed my words. If you take the time to do your projects right, it will only benefit you. Encourage clients that are willing to let you do your job the way you know how. And for anyone looking to hire someone to make a website, establish a level of trust with your developers and then let them do their job. It's ok to want proof of their abilities, but if you don't trust them they will only disappoint you.
The $2 attention to detail ends up producing products that are much more valuable than you could ever imagine. From the client point of view, if save two minutes of work a thousand times, that adds up to two thousand minutes, or 33 and a third hours. Little by little, those small savings add up into something huge. And for developers, having a few really happy clients makes more clients that are willing to refer you to people they know. And that means better work, and continued success. Anybody can do this, but you have to actually work for it. And make sure to go that extra mile for the people that take care of you.
Posted in Deep Thoughts, Design, Software Engineering, Testimonials by Dave Poole
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