I was talking to someone last night about the pros and cons of working independently.
Most of the time I love what I do, but I do sometimes yearn to be back in an organisation – just to extend the impact of my contribution, and quite frankly, to make life a little bit easier too.
Take IT – I’ve had so many problems with my laptop this year, and each one can easily write off a day to sort out.
My latest hassle is with my website and email hosting. Bluhalo, which designed the site (www.strategic-hcm.com, not this blog which is with Blogger / Google) are ‘transferring’ my service . They told me about a year ago and I told them who I wanted it transferred to (GoDaddy, who already host my Social Advantage site and email). Things have been a bit delayed (largely because I’ve had to pay them some extra money I didn’t think I should have needed to) and it now transpires, a few days before they are going to switch me off, that ‘transferring’ means just that – switching it off:
Dear Jon
Further to your recent conversations with Kelly, I am getting in touch to arrange the migration of your services with Bluhalo to your new hosting provider. I can see from your letter which accompanies your completed transfer form that you would like us to actually set up the website and emails on your new servers.
Unfortunately we are unable to do this but listed below is all the information that you will need in order to for you, your new hosting company or another third party to do this for you.
We host the domain name, email addresses and website for the strategic-hcm.com
Domain name
The domain name has been unlocked and is ready to transfer. You will need the following authorisation code for the transfer:
…
Email Addresses
We have the following email addresses set up on our servers:
…
Website
You can download a copy of your website directly from our servers using these details, in order that you can upload it to your new web hosting services:
…
Kind regards
Melanie
Bluhalo Ltd
The Hub
Fowler Avenue
Farnborough GU14 7JP
www.bluhalo.com
They call it migration, but I think they’re thinking of lemmings, rather than wildebeest here!
I’ve pointed it out to them that they’re the ones ‘transferring’ me, not the other way around (I’m not large enough for them apparently), but it’s not made any difference – they’ve not got the manpower to help me.
Great. So I’m cancelling my meetings for tomorrow, and will get to learn some more thrilling information about website hosting instead. I just hope you’ll still be able to contact me via email { jon [dot] ingham [at] strategic [dash] hcm [dot] com } come December!
Yup, web hosters are a nightmare!
ReplyDeleteI found the key to independent work is to stop working as if we are in a corporate.
We have to do the strategy and resourcing. I soon learned to strip everything down to basics. One small office and lots of time off!
Thanks Jo. It's good to have your support. I wasn't feeling sure about this post - I've never used my blog to rant before. But I do think that even professional blogs benefit from including posts that come from a very personal perspective. And yes, this lot at least are being a complete nightmare!
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