The Ones that Get Away

I got a message from what had been a potential client today.

We'll call him Bob (not his real name). He had contacted me regarding a Web project for which he needed my services. The project involved one of his clients (call them ABC Company), who wanted to update their existing website. The site was programmed using PHP and he was hoping that I could help them take some new designs and apply them to the site.

By the way, this sort of project is what I call a "conversion". I'm given a picture of what the site is supposed to look like and convert it into HTML and CSS so that it actually works on the Web.

Things were going along well until today when we found out that ABC Company's original web designer wouldn't give up the passwords to the site, which means that Bob and I can't make any changes to it. So, basically, ABC Company has the choice of continuing to work with their original designer (in which case they wouldn't need me) or do a complete redesign with Bob. In the second situation, Bob's company would do the redesign entirely in house using their own (Microsoft-oriented) programmers and wouldn't need me.

Am I upset? Maybe a little. Oh, not with Bob or ABC. I'm mainly irritated that someone in my industry, instead of keeping his customers through an excellent product or service, has basically decided to extort their clients' loyalty. It just gives us all a bad name.

As for me, I'm not going to worry about it in the slightest. As my mom has told me before: If you make space in your life, the universe will find a way to fill it.

So, what was the last "big one" that got away from you?