tatey.com

I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m not exactly sure where I want to take it. It’s like driving along a street, and reaching a T-Intersection. You can’t continue along, you need to make a choice and either go one direction or the other. To date, I have completed about 50% of my Commerce degree at uni. After barely completing last semester, I’ve decided to put my degree on hold for six months, and explore alternate options.

For the past five or six years, I’ve been experimenting and learning web site and graphic design. I’m familiar with XHTML/CSS and Adobe Photoshop. I’ve always thought it may be possible to derive a sustainable income from providing web solutions to small and local businesses. However, I’ve never taken the idea seriously enough to make anything of it… until recently. My family and friends are well aware of my capabilities and have often encouraged me to embark on this route.

Last Tuesday, an employee from my father’s company informed me that somebody he knew was in need a website for their new organisation. Contemplating the idea, I felt that it may be time to take this option seriously. I contacted the organisation, and managed to arrange for a face-to-face consultation. I figured this would be the most appropriate method for deriving information. After all, I’m providing them a solution that is customized for their organisation. This is very important.

After speaking with the organisation and hanging up the phone, I immediately realised I had nothing “Professional” to wear. Typically, I’m a jeans and t-shirt person, and on special occasions I’ll wear a collared shirt with a nicer pair of jeans. I’ve never had the justification to wear leather shoes, or a nice pair of trousers. Now with this potential new client, I did have the justification. I slapped on some clothes, and visited the local shopping centre.

I already owned a nice collared shirt, which I took to the professional dry-cleaners to have it steam-pressed. I can iron, but long sleeved collared shirts are very difficult to get perfect. Next, I got a long-needed hair trim before finally searching for a nice pair of trousers and shoes. After spending about an hour looking around, I finally came across a nice pair of black, pin-stripped trousers that were around $60. Furthermore, I had to get them altered, as they were a tad too long. This was an additional $16. In total, my new trousers cost $76. Lastly, I required a nice pair of leather shoes. After visiting several shoe stores, I discovered a pair that I was happy with. They were black, glossy and I picked them up for $65 from $130.

The end result.

In addition, one of my mates recently returned from overseas, and picked me up a very nice looking Amarini watch. It’s probably not genuine, but it looks great Cheers Riz.

15 Comments to “Kick starting a job in the web industry: Meeting a potential client”

1. Ash
   February 9th, 2007 at 2:47 pm

   Wow, looka t you go. Good luck, I say.

2. Tamieka
   February 10th, 2007 at 2:02 pm

   Cute.

   I know that Stephens Dad is after someone to do up a new website for his photography business. So if you were interested …

3. Flora
   February 11th, 2007 at 11:30 am

   Hey nubs,

   Lookin’ good! Too bad you’re still shit

   Oh yeah, too bad you’re not into Graphics Design much, I could get Steve to hook you up!

4. Owen
   February 12th, 2007 at 8:57 am

   TATE GOT HOT

5. Owen
   February 12th, 2007 at 8:59 am

   I assume you’ve probably already done something similar at uni, but, I did a unit called “IT Professional Studies”, where we had to interview our “client” (lecturer) and find out information we needed over a 13 week period to build a website.

   There’s some material you might find useful, just abstract stuff like resource discovery processes, needs analysis, client requirements, etc. If you want, I can probably just send you all the lecture materials, and you can have a read over it and see if you can make use of the info.

6. Tatey
   February 12th, 2007 at 10:10 am

   Thanks for the positive comments guys :).

   Ashley: Thanks
   Tamieka: I’d appreciate talking to Stephens father
   Flora: You are nub
   Owen: If I could grab that lecture material off you, I’m sure it’d be of great use to me

   Cheers.

7. Pascal Klein
   February 12th, 2007 at 11:05 pm

   Hey, neat. Good luck mate. =]

8. Jessmukkah
   February 13th, 2007 at 3:26 am

   Holy moly, how cute are you. If your application were going to be judged on professional swoobiness alone, you’d be so hired.

9. Tatey
   February 14th, 2007 at 10:10 am

   Thanks for all the comments guys. The meeting went exceptionally well I feel that my client and I formed an excellent understanding of what they’re trying to achieve.

10. siccness
    February 15th, 2007 at 12:29 am

    Congratulations mate, I hope it all turns out for the best. Your talent for this website designing stuff is clearly evident. Now, if only you were able to recognize the fact that gentoo is the superior distribution for website design work, as opposed to arch.

    /me runs

    Sorry, cheap-shot but worth it

11. Owen
    February 17th, 2007 at 12:51 am

    SURPRISE BUTTSECKS!!!!!!!!

12. Flora
    February 22nd, 2007 at 10:33 pm

    It’s Armani, although if Riz got it for you back in the old country, I wouldn’t be suprised if it was ‘Amarini’

    LAWL

13. Tatey
    February 22nd, 2007 at 11:12 pm

    I’ll ‘Amarini’ you in a minute.

14. Andrew Swinn
    June 2nd, 2007 at 12:44 pm

    Good to see you heading in this direction. You have obvious graphics and design talent. There is plenty of website work out there for those who want to take it on. Good luck with it all.

    Don’t forget about those open source tools!

    Cheers

    BTW, I am hooked on Arch Linux permanently now days. I became fed up with the direction Ubuntu was headed so jumped to Debian for a while. But Arch is where it’s at!

15. Tatey
    June 7th, 2007 at 10:57 pm

    Hi Andrew, how are you going? I haven’t seen you around for a while. I’m relived to hear that you’ve migrated to Arch. Believe it or not, pro-Gentoo siccness has switched too.

    In reference to FOSS tools, I use them for everything except graphic design. Whether I’m developing on OS X or Arch Linux, I use FOSS applications. I only support FOSS web hosts and CMS’s. I switch my clients over to FOSS applications, including OOo, Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird. Don’t you worry, I’m all about FOSS

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