I had two odd conversations with two journalists in the last 24 hours. The first was a late night ping on facebook when a disgruntled journo asked if I’d seen the shameless cover of the latest seeker. I answered no, because like many in Cornwall I don’t read it.
I’m not being mean or petty when I say that, but it’s not delivered and frankly the content isn’t something I need to see or read, but when I do it’s for Julia’s editorials because frankly she really shouldn’t be writing and her grasp of English is way Emily Latella.
This issue she was actually complaining about a paying customer. Julia runs a computer service and hosts websites. Imagine, a client was upset that their site was down and they couldn’t reach her, for days. Apparently she’d been on vacation and was disconnected from the world, or at least her clients.
She goes on about her horrible monster of a client knocking on her door. She works from home with the front of her building being her office. No crime there. I work from home, but I don’t bring customers there or do anything other than write.
Now frankly it’s boggling to see anyone complain about a client. It’s almost as funny as the day she wrote about one of her many children knocking the plug out of the wall for her server so all her clients websites went down.
Nowadays most sites are hosted on big server farms. It’s impersonal, but your site is rarely if ever down and depending on which company you use you normally will have a reply within an hour if you have an issue.
The cost can be less than $50 per year for an average basic site so no real need to pay much more and not be served which is why it’s utterly critical to not write columns about your horrible paying clients 🙂
Now this led me to someone that is all too familiar with Ms Lucio’s brand of news or opinion. This week for example the cover was sold to Bernadette Clement for her campaign. That’s the kind of strategy that will lead to a strong 3rd place finish.
You generally don’t sell the cover of a newspaper, but to the credit of both Ms Lucio and Bernie this time(she’s done it in previous elections) in small print on the cover they did state it was a paid ad.
Bernie has a whole team strategizing for her this time around. She’s not doing the two year lead in and hide tactic that worked so well the last time she ran against Guy Lauzon. This time it’s a much more shorter lead in and hide strategy.
For someone that claims to be offering a different leadership she kinda behaves just like him a lot. Stick to the party line and hide from real media. That and not stand up for any real issues like kids being attacked for selling worms or being the deciding vote to kill a small $12,000 grant to your only public art gallery after cutting its funding to zero.
Bernie’s team realizing that she doesn’t play that well in the townships decided to kick things off in Morrisburg. That’s not the worst of ideas. Maybe it will work, but then when there are unanswered closet questions and you choose to host your event where she did (which is a lovely place – I’ve eaten there myself) a certain lack of political nuance surely has been missed if you consider the purpose of the exercise. Again, a strong 3rd finish for Bernie is predicted here.
Which leads me to my poor Dog’s testicles which is why this story was written. After chatting about this with the talented second journalist I suggested that if I wrote about my poor dog’s junk it’d get more traffic than probably anything Bernie paid for.
See Fitzy is a Dachshund. (pictured above with his late sister, Miss Melly) My uncle had one too and in the Winter would have to vaseline up his dog Pogey because of um, freezing conditions….it’s not easy when your junk hangs that close to icy surfaces.
Fitzy is not only low to the ground, he also has not been neutered. I know all the arguments to do it and even agree with them, but I just haven’t had the heart to give the little guy the chop. He’s dimmered down and isn’t that ardent now that he’s three and well being a guy too it just kinda feels wrong to give him the chop although I might have to now that he has his new baby sister, Miss Lily, below.
It’s funny how dogs can be smarter than some politicians, or journalists, or um, editors even.
They know if they are treated nicely, given sustenance, and had their bums rubbed, metaphorically or otherwise, that you never, not ever, not even once, bite the hands that feeds you.
What do you think dear CFN viewers? You can post your comments below.
how come those who hate and attack you never call out people in media who do not have journalism degrees? probably ignorance. or maybe it’s really smart to pretend not to know that reporters do not require degrees, certification or approval/endorsement by a journalism organizations. example, you don’t see your attackers shouting ‘BLOGGER GIRL!’ at anyone, or making personal attacks on physical traits, mental health, finances, character etc. i guess if you write nothing of interest and/or stand for no issue it can be a recipe for success. even that blathering Mr. Thomas, who might be educated, or at the very least sounds like he’s taken the elocution lessons that govern his attempts at The Queen’s English appears to have a cruel streak, a sad following, and probably knows better than to engage in personal abuse.
There is definitely a lesson to be learned by this……..well at the least the politicians should being learning it, I hope. But then again, subtle words of lessons tend to flip over their heads
Julia has a home based business and many home based businesses are not,as you know, “oncall” 24-7. Perhaps the customer should have looked into that before using her services. If the customer went with a bigger company, that offers 24-7 service they most likely would be paying more for those services.
You forgot to mention that the “real” issue was that, said client, had walked through her house, via her kitchen, and stopped short of a bedroom door. The client did not enter into or through the office.
Julia may be practicing the “80-20” rule. That is: Focus on the 20% of your clients that give you 80% of your business and require 20% of your time and spend less time on the 80% who only give you 20% of your business but require 80% of your time.( in other words the troublemakers and the complainers who generate more problems then they are worth).
IMHO if you are hosting websites, etc. you had better be available when problems pop up. It was very unprofessional of her to go on vacation and not have a backup plan.
Hugger, who says she didn’t have a back up plan? Also, see my above comment about the 80- 20 rule.
And besides, not having a backup plan does not entitle a customer to walk through your house uninvited. It was this act that prompted her editorial more so then the customer expecting her to be on call 24-7.
Jamie today I roared with laughter about my sweetie Fitzie and not only that Jamie I copied pictures of your dogs and they landed in my daughter’s area on the computer and she said “mom those are cute dogs who do they belong to” and I told her that it was Jamie’s dogs who has the paper that I love to read and post. Jamie you have beautiful pets. Well with Fitzie not fixed you might wake up one morning and find yourself a surprise with little ones around the house. LOL LOL. ROLF! So cute Jamie.
Well, Trevor….if she had a backup plan it failed miserably. It’s one thing to host sites, it’s another to host the correct type of sites if you don’t have a backup plan in case of failures.
Hugger , you can’t blame her if the client’s phone service was not accepting texts and therefore unreachable at the time. Perhaps the client should blame his phone service. Again, the point of her editorial is not about an irate client as much as it is about a client barging through her house uninvited. No amount of poor customer service (if there even was any) justifies that behavior.
Trevor one of the reasons I don’t go there in my oped is that we don’t have both sides of the story. We only have Ms Lucio’s to base any opinion on. I’ve been at her building. I’m not sure it’s so unreasonable that someone looked for another door and knocked. And I know that I’d be upset if CFN were down for that long for example with no email reply or voice reply.
It sounds like an unfortunate series of events, but to write about a paying customer like that?
Agreed! We don’t have both sides. But the discussion here is based on what we do know and she was upset more about the intrusion into her home not the client’s use of another door or being upset with her service. I bet most people would feel that way if some one barged through there house. Totally unjustified if that did occur.
Only one side of the story is never good. Every story has two sides. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.
The client had no right to go through her home.
But Julia has to realize if she is going to provide “hosting” services then she had better provide options if she is unavailable. Getting continual emails from one client might indicate your responses are NOT getting through and perhaps you should pick up the phone and talk to the client.
And I see she’s another one who likes to knock Cornwall.
And what do gun controls have to do with this?