By Lisa Jenkins

What This Is and Isn’t

It’s not a mea culpa.

It’s an object lesson I’m sharing so you don’t ever have to learn it for yourself.

The Backstory

Now, I either charge full fees for what I do or charge nothing for what I do – either way, the client gets my best effort.

Since becoming self-employed and contracting my services, I’ve had to rearrange how I give back to the global community. I don’t have the kind of time I had in the past.

Where I used to do things like work with a food bank to collect donations of canned goods that I built into a giant salmon sculpture in the mall in order to spur more donations, I now donate my service to organizations that match who I am as a person.

There’s no cookie cutter – if it’s a fit for me, I’m happy to help.

So last week, when a valued colleague shot me a message asking if I knew anyone who would be interested in a short term project that involved hashtag tracking for a non-profit, I offered to donate my services.

It was simple. Track and analyze a two-week history for a single hashtag across three social media platforms. A walk in the park, right? I told the client I’d be in touch on Tuesday.

It became apparent that the tools I use weren’t equal to managing what turned out to be a massive amount of historical data. Massive. I hit the thresholds of data collection before the first day was out. I requested upgrade quotes.

I should’ve let the client know but ever the optimist, I trusted that quotes from my vendors would arrive. Until today. I’ve still heard nothing and time is up. I can’t deliver what I promised.

If I hadn’t counted on vendors to respond and deliver, I would’ve contacted the client and had them make arrangements with someone else. I need those upgrades to do the job I took on.

If the client hadn’t counted on me to deliver, they wouldn’t have publicized the anticipated release of the data. They need that data to close their campaign.

I am professionally mortified. I’ve owned up but that doesn’t fix anything; apologizing never mended a broken plate. The client is left in the lurch. And it’s my fault.

The Lesson

Never count on having something you need from a third party until you have what you need in hand.

As I type, it seems like I should’ve known this before now. Maybe I’m naive or maybe I’ve just been lucky up to now. The point is, I don’t want you to have to learn this lesson for yourself. So I’ve shared it.

In the interest of making life easier for fellow colleagues and their clients, feel free to share your own hard-learned lesson in comments.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons