I've mentioned before that we are blessed with a very accommodating customer where I currently collect a paycheque. He interacts with the team a minimum of once a day at our daily stand-ups and attends almost every other meeting we ask him to. And he has the power to make decisions, most of which are made on the spot (which is sometimes bad, but for the most part good).

But sometimes I feel like we take his time and contribution for granted. We're all very appreciative and polite to him but on a couple of occasions I've sensed a bit of frustration on his part. Not with our progress which has been pretty good. More with little one-off conversations. Like the way we'll try to nail him down on priorities when he has other things he feels are more important. Or how we'll ask him a question and not offer guidance or suggestions on how things are done in other applications.

I can't point to any specific instances of this because my memory sucks when it comes to things I don't feel I need to remember. And I should mention that I believe our relationship with him as a team is nothing short of stellar. I'm just left with some vague impression that, in a couple of instances, he was uncomfortable with something but wasn't quite sure what it was or whether he should bring it up.

My guess is, we could be asking him, "how do you think things are going in general?" more often. And not at a sprint review meeting in front of the entire team. Just one person from the development team walking with him to the elevator after the daily stand-up to talk with him on a more subjective level. Or someone inviting him to coffee in the afternoon every two or three weeks just to see if there are any pain points he's feeling off the record. It would also give us a chance to show appreciation for his efforts. He is, after all, paying for us to play with some cool, bloggable technology.

I'm not going to go into a whole spiel on relationships with your client. If you're the type of person I think/assume/expect you are, you know better than to take your client for granted. But the moral is: be nice to your customer. Within reason and within your own situation's context, of course. Not every customer will be so cooperative and/or available. If you are heading for the comments button to recount stories about your own Franken-client, make sure you can honestly say you've tried your best to make him or her happy first.

And I don't just mean with the software you've built.

Kyle the Sentimental

On the heels of my being thrust back into the corporate world after a year away, I'm again reminded of a sometimes latent but usually blatant prejudice that still survives to this very day in the workplace. I refer, of course, to the oppression of tea drinkers by those that favour coffee.

Tired am I of so-called "coffee stations" peppered two per floor in every building higher than three flooers. They are aptly named, to be sure, because of the second-class status placed on any other beverage. Wander over to yours right now and tell me what the biggest, most garish device is in that room. Go on, I'll wait. Don't read any further until you come back...

OK, now that we've lost the gullible ones, I can continue on for the rest of you folks who don't automatically obey every command you read on strange websites that hint of inter-breeding.
If your machine is like most I've seen, it can produce your Columbian, your espresso, your dark roast, maybe even a mocha, plus one or two other varieties, give or take a dozen. Plus it can make hot water.

That's what the tea drinkers get. Hot water. Not boiling water, like you're supposed to use. Tepid to warmish water that could barely dissolve a package of Kool-Aid, let alone steep a decent cup of tea.
If you're particularly damned, you're station will have a Flavia machine. The one where you shove a package of your drink of choice into it hoping that the last two people to use it had something similar (although admittedly, green tea with a hint of French Roast will certainly get your attention in the morning).

Seasoned tea drinks have come to accept their lot. They're the ones who take one look at the brown mass on the counter, then bring in their own kettle if one hasn't been provided. They wait patiently for the water to boil while co-workers file by "the machine" in droves, oblivious to the ease with which they can continue on their activities. They are reflective while dipping their tea bag in the water in an attempt to steep it a little faster. They appear lost in thought when in fact they are thinking, "I feel like a dweeb poking this thing up and down in my cup." That is what they, we, are reduced to.

To be fair, most of the coffee-partakers do recognize that the coffee they're drinking is more likely to come from a lab at Columbia University than the actual country. But at least that gives them a common conversation topic. They can make good-natured jibes to each other before the meeting about how bad it tastes and "man, what I wouldn't give for a Timmy's across the street" and "you know it, I can't function in the morning without my caffeine fix."

Sometimes I envy them.

Kyle the British