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The Man Who Knew Everything
May 2nd, 2008 | Posted in Web Design.
I was raised on a farm. Yeah, I know. You looked at my educated prose and thought I was a Harvard man. Dad a college professor, mom a lawyer. Easy mistake, don’t fret about it.
We weren’t all rubes down on the farm. One guy there knew everything. Name of Clarkson. He believed if he saw it done once, he could do it too. Like shoeing horses. Old man Branchett, two up from us, still kept horses. The smith called over to shoe them when needed.
Clarkson and me were there once when the smith called. We watched the proceedings. A few others watched too. It was quite a gathering. You couldn’t get a good TV signal there in them days.
The smith liked an audience. He told us what he was going to do then did it then told us what he had done. We nodded. Clarkson nodded. You could see him thinking. Truth be told, you could HEAR him thinking.
First up was a frisky mare. She wasn’t going to be shoed. She kicked and she jumped. Branchett’s two sons held her head. She still kicked. The smith told us the Big Secret about horses. They’ve got four legs, he said. We allowed they had. They can stand on three legs, he went on, but they don’t like standing on two. We believed him.
The smith picked up the offside foreleg, flipped off the old shoe, filed some horn and quickly nailed on its replacement. Cold steel, off-the-shelf shoe. None of your made-to-measure hot iron. It was just like a shoe store. Except for the nails, of course.
Next in was a big Clydesdale plow horse. A gelding, but still man enough to need handling. The smith rolled his sleeves up further and spat in his hands. A man’s job, his actions said. Years of training needed. Clarkson stepped forward. “I can do it. And for half the price.”
When a man wants to make a fool of himself, it’s rude to stop him. We weren’t rude at all to Clarkson. Some might say we were overly polite. Clarkson declared that he had seen many horses shoed and there was nothing to it. Blacksmithing the modern way, with cold shoes and special tools, he went on, wasn’t a trade or an art, it was easy work. The smith took this very well, I thought. He stepped back to make way. He was smiling.
Now, you’re probably licking your lips and waiting for me to tell you how that big Clydesdale kicked Clarkson’s butt from here to Tuesday. That didn’t happen. He took his time, Clarkson, but he got the old shoe off and the filing done and the new shoe on. Some said it looked good, some said it looked funny, some suggested it was upside down. Whatever it was, though, it was on. The smith said nothing, he just carried on smiling as he packed away his tools and drove off in his pickup.
Old man Branchett was delighted. He wasn’t delighted the next morning when the shoe came off in the north forty and the horse fell over.
A lot of people are like Branchett, trying to save a few dollars here and there. A lot of web designers are like Clarkson, they’ve seen enough websites that web design is no longer a mystery to them. And their friends are too polite to tell them they’re wrong.
A good website has to be put together by a web designer who is experienced in, believe it or not, web design. Experience in looking at sites doesn’t count, it’s experience in building good, stable websites that matters when your visitors hit your north forty.
Bad design is bad for business and you can’t get professional work from an amateur. Especially if that amateur is shoeing his first horse without training. I guess you know what I mean.
Your website is your storefront these days. You wouldn’t try putting up a bricks and mortar store all by yourself just because you’ve seen a few stores in your time. Sure, even if you did, your friends would be polite about it and tell you it’s the best store they’ve seen this side of Paris. France or Texas, most folks can’t tell the difference. Your customers might not be too keen in coming inside, though. Not even in Texas.
You don’t have to call in a big city company whose employees went to Harvard. A good freelance web designer, working from home, will offer a good service at a fair price. Just like the blacksmith. You stick to farming or whatever your business is. You’ll make more money.
About the Author: John M. is the owner and writer of the Speed Waiting blog.
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