Court is awesome as long as you win
I went to court the other day. The court proceedings were concerning a customer who received the site they asked us to build and then choose to not pay for it. The client let us know that they intended to seek damages from us. The fact is we finished the site with even more functionality than the customer had asked for and we did it quickly. Because we had a hunch that the client was going to take us to court we decided to go after her first, after all she owed us a lot of money. Our customer didn’t show up to the hearing, which we didn’t think she would so a default judgment was made in our favor. This was the second default judgment we got against this customer. We made this same lawsuit a few months ago and won then also, but she appealed the ruling. What was the point of appealing if she wasn’t going to show the second time?
This was the third time I was asked to go to court for my company. The first time was as the defendant. We had built a website for a customer who sells printer ink and toner. They had a specific request for their site that we fulfilled. The site did exactly what the customer wanted and they admitted that in their arguments to the judge. When you go into court the judge explains that before anybody gets up in front of him they should consider mediation. I’ll talk about that in a bit (mediation is awesome and I want to be a mediator!). We opted to go to mediation where both sides put up their arguments. In the mediation we agreed to give $500 back to the customer, who turned down the offer because they wanted everything back. Since we didn’t settle our differences there we ended up in front of the judge. We presented our same case to the judge who seriously didn’t understand why the plaintiff was arguing (he had already admitted we did the work he wanted). My company did the work and we did it better than how the contract said we would do it. The real argument from the customer is that we used JavaScript instead of a database. In this case, we were actually using JavaScript to access the database through AJAX to save page loads! It’s what you would WANT for your website to have! I believe the judge did what he could to not laugh as he closed the case and the customer didn’t receive a dime from us.
Mediation is Awesome!
For $1,000 you can take a course on mediation. Once you pass that course you can go sit on the sidelines of the court room and wait for a case to come to you. It’s a free service you’d be offering to get experience but it’s so awesome. As a mediator you take both parties into a room and let them show both sides of the argument. From there you try to see if there is a middle ground both sides can agree to. If there isn’t you just kick them back to the court room. If you succeed as a mediator you save both parties a lot of headaches. I really want to do it, but I would need the cash for the class first. Once you get some experience behind you in mediation you can start selling your services. As a mediator you can charge for your services and save businesses thousands in legal costs. Mediation really is the best way to go when you have something to fight over.
Other than the courts…
What is it about getting less sleep and being less tired at the same time? I have a new outlook on life lately. I know it will last forever because I want it to. I guess when you feel a dark cloud over yourself for a few years you end up with few options. The first is to just continue feeling that way until you die and the second would be an attitude adjustment. Apparently I opted for the attitude adjustment and I’m feeling a lot better lately. I’m more in-tune at my job and at my home and I’m even having an easier time with the boy.
Natalie got a part time job selling make up. I don’t really know what she does but she can take the kids and she just schedules appointments to get makeovers. It sounds like a Mary Kay type business. If I cared about make up at all I might care to learn more about it. Personally I wish all the make up products would be destroyed. I can’t convince my wife of that though.