I talked to some of these users and found out what was really going on. Sam was simply not communicating well. He was trying to set up meetings and get testing from people who were already overworked because it was quarter-end and they had books to close. He was demanding their time and kept telling them they had to help. He didn't seem to care about them, and thus they didn't care about his project.

I knew this was important so I told him I would get his testing done. He agreed, and I individually talked to each person, and found that they really did want to be involved. They just wanted to be treated like human beings. I called some lunch meetings and bought everyone pizza and soda to discuss issues (even remembering vegetarian pizza for non-meat-eating members of group). I worked with their bosses to arrange schedules and sent special thank you notes to everyone (carefully carbon copying their supervisors). Before long, entire team was involved and tested was completed.

The third most important thing is "be completely and totally ethical at all times". Never, ever violate your integrity.

For example, I had a boss named Gary who assigned me to create a warehouse system. I wanted to talk to customer, find out what they wanted, then write a proposal, get it approved, write a specification, get it approved, then write a more detailed design specification, and finally write code. My boss didn't like that at all. He said customer wanted results, not paper and words.

He told me to shut up and watch an "expert" at work. Gary then spent one hour (!) interviewing customer, then told me to start writing code. I protested, but was young and dumb and did what he said.

The effect was catastrophic. The system took ten times longer than expected, required thousands of man hours to debug and has been a maintenance nightmare. Why? Because we could not do what customer wanted for simple reason that we did not ask them, then tell them back what they said (and repeat until done). That's only way to be sure you are doing right thing. What we wound up doing was writing and rewriting and rewriting until we got it right.

The final irony? Years later customer asked me why we hadn't written a proposal, a specification and a design specification. They said it would have sure made things a lot easier for them! Now that I'm older and wiser, I would have held my ground and done right thing regardless of what "expert" thought.

The next thing to do is to do best possible job that you can do. So do whatever you need to do to understand your job. Read books, attend seminars, network with peers, go to classes and continue to learn every single day. That's right, set aside some time every single day to get better at your job.

If you want to be a webmaster, then BE a webmaster. Learn what it means, learn how to do it, and learn what you need to learn. Then put your learning to work and be best webmaster you can possibly be. Create excellent web sites and deliver excellent products to your company, your users and your customers.

The final advice, perhaps most important thing of all, is to be happy with what you do. Be happy with your job. After all, you spend a fair portion of your life, perhaps majority of your life, working. If you don't enjoy what you do, then are you truly happy?

I've seen more people miserable with their jobs that I like to think about. People who are hanging on to collect a pay check instead of doing something they really like.

I know none of this appears to have anything to do with computers or internet or anything else, but it does, believe me.

We IT people tend to be introverted, we tend to think of computers as more important than people, and we tend to have these huge, silly biases which do nothing but make our lives difficult. All of this gets in way of doing our jobs and, more importantly, being happy with what we do.

So learn and continue to learn. Be happy and stay ethical. Treat others with respect and communicate freely and opening with everyone. And be best that you can possibly be. That's advice that I will give anyone who asks.

I've been a programmer, designer, analyst, manager, VP and director for various companies over past twenty years. I've always lived by this rule, and I've always demanded it from vendors and companies with which I do business.

You always treat customers well. Good, paying customers are like gold in world, and you always treat them right. You don't need to "take it" from them, you simply treat them with respect. Treat your customers well.

When I managed a shop of 12 consultants we had a strict policy: customer must be happy with our work. If customer is unhappy, we would work for free or give money back or come to some agreement to make him happy. Sometimes, of course, there were those customers who could never be happy with anything - those we simply didn't do business with at all. The customer must treat us with a measure of respect, after all, but we always felt we were in drivers seat.

This applies to job as well. In my organization, my "customers" are my users, people who use computers which we support. We practice "the customer is king" all of time, every day of week. If I get a call from a user on a weekend at 2 am, I make sure he gets help he needs. When CEO's laptop breaks, he gets a new one as fast as possible; and when receptionist needs a new program installed it's done just as quickly.

I've written about this before, and one person wrote back, "In my experience, kowtowing to clients or customers, bending to their every whim no matter how ludicrous, and keeping a fake smile plastered on your face while you utter 'Thank you sir! May I have another?' is a sure-fire recipe for misery."

Ah, poor fool simply does not understand. You don't "kowtow". You provide service and give respect to your customers.

But what about those abusive customers? The customer who is never satisfied or demands his money back or whatever?

These are exceptions. Most people are good, honest and hard working. They want to do good, and they want a good product or service. Most people are perfectly willing to pay for value received, and most people do not make life difficult.

Those that do are exceptions to this rule. Most people are good, not evil. So treat vast majority as good, and treat exceptions appropriately. Remember, you don't have to accept money from anyone, but once you do they are customers.

If you are a consultant, give best value that you can, then give a little more. If customer is a complete jerk, then don't do business with him at all. You don't have to accept money!

And that's what I've got to say about that.