My reality

Chad: Perception and Reality:

The perception, from my side of things, is "Hey - that's cool. Thanks for the effort!" (or at least something along those lines - it doesn't have to be exact, and more groveling would certainly be nice, as well as monetary rewards and everlasting fame).

Reality, however, is very different. It's more like "Moron. It needs to do something else." or even "I can't figure it out. Tell me how to do it because I can't understand. Pay you for your time? Why should I have to do that?"

While I know this certainly does not apply to everybody out there, some days I get the feeling that some users of my plugins think that I spend sixteen hours a day just sitting on my hands when I could be working on the plugins, fixing the problems they are having on their install or adding the feature that they really want.

Needless to say, that is far from my reality. I work. I work full time. I work an hour away from home, which means on the average day I am out of the house for around eleven hours. Add in about six hours for sleep (eight? ha!), and that would leave me with about seven hours a day for plugin work, right? Well, I think I am going to need at least an hour or two of relaxing and unwinding as my job can be quite stressful some days (and especially last week). Oh, and I have to take out the trash, mow the lawn, and handle a couple other general house duties. Let's say that averages out to about half an hour per day. In fact, let's just roll that into my relax time (I don't need to relax) and call it an even two hours.

So that would leave me with five hours each day for plugin work. Now, unfortunately, money is a little tight for a number of reasons, including the infertility treatments of the past almost two years (which is also quite stressful, but as established previously, I don't really need to relax). So, not too long ago, I decided to sell my services/soul as a Movable Type plugin developer among other things to help pay for the treatments.

Did I mention that a vial of the infertility drug we used during the last couple treatment cycles is smaller than my thumb and costs approximately $400?

During the last couple cycles we went through about four vials. Per cycle. Insurance did not cover them.

Okay, so, back selling my kidneys.. err.. services. Five hours per day at my rates should be plenty, right? Unfortunately, it's a little more complicated than that. First of all, I am horribly unorganized (I'm working on it), so that doesn't help any. Secondly, up until recently, I haven't been able to keep those hours full of paying work. In fact, right now, I've actually got too much work (I have trouble saying no. Can you blame me?). Again, up go the stress levels.

But wait! There's more! I mentioned the infertility, right? Right. In addition to stressing the hell out of both of us individually, it has put a serious strain on our relationship. Strangely enough, my wife still wants to spend time with me. That takes time too.

That is my reality. A stressed out and money hungry reality, which obviously heavily influences my priority list.

First: the paid work.

Second: the me work, which is whatever the heck I want to do. Sometimes that includes working on plugins for my site (which usually includes MultiBlog), but it's usually just to get it working for my site (what I'm calling "worksforme" status now) and not release versions. Sometimes it's just tinkering with fancy new web technologies (FastCGI, lighttpd, Ruby on Rails, and so forth). And sometimes, it's painting some of my miniatures or spending some quality time with my Xbox (neither of which I have done enough as of late).

Lastly: the other stuff. If I am feeling nice, maybe I will spend some time fixing the bug somebody found by running on of my plugins on an older version of Movable Type. Or implementing the feature or plugin somebody asked that I found slightly interesting. Or maybe one that I didn't even find all that interesting and I'm just bored.

Want your task to get higher up on my list? There are a few very simple ways to do that, and not all of them include money exchanging hands.

The easiest way, though, is money exchanging hands. The easiest way to convey that the time I might spend working on your problem or request is as important to you as it is to me is with a check, or whatever other form of payment you can come up with.

Amazingly enough, to get higher up on my list, often just saying thanks or something similar is sufficient. And beyond that, it really helps if you take the time to proofread or review what you are going to send me. While I try hard to give folks the benefit of the doubt (which is easier some days than others), simple requests often come across sounding like demands when framed in just text. Oh, and the less effort that I have to spend tracking your request down, the better. There is a reason I started my own plugin support forums.

Okay, I think I have more than exceeded my rant/whine quota for the week, so I will have to stop there. I apologize if I went a little over the top with all that, but the last few weeks have been a little crazy between the giant-super-important demos at work, Jenn's surgery and recovery, and the release of Movable Type 3.2. Did I mention the stress?