This morning, I woke up to a light dusting of snow outside. I went to sweep the snow from the front steps, and ended up knocking a vertical bar off the hand railing. As the steps are less than 6 months old, this was very disappointing to me. I contacted the contractor and am waiting for a response. I wish I could say that was the only issue I’ve had with another organization’s quality or customer service this month, but I’d be lying. I purchased an annual subscription to an online news site only to find that their computers say my subscription started in March – instead of December – so my annual subscription will be due 3 months after I paid for it. Their support has still not responded to the issue. I contacted a university in Pittsburgh to get information on taking the HSK exam (Chinese language proficiency) and never heard back. A second university I contacted replied within minutes – with two URLs that were both wrong. And, for one more poor customer service issue, I have been unable to get Google to fix a problem with my account for almost two months now. The problem is on their end, it’s documented in numerous places, but all I am ever told is to upgrade to Silver support to have it fixed. I have to pay them more money to fix a problem that is on their end.
These stories are all just from this month. We live in a world where people have become lazy and sloppy. Quality is increasingly difficult to find, and support is often so bad we’d rather not even try. For me, as a software engineer, this is unacceptable. Every line of code I write – whether for my projects or for a customer – is written so that it can be maintained long-term. I take pride in the quality of my code and the applications I develop. I am more than happy to support the applications and code I write because I create a quality product. My code is a reflection of me.
When you’re looking for development resources for your projects, do they feel the same way? Or will you regret your decision this time next year?