EppsNet

We recently put the following message, in a bold blue font, at the top of a client’s home page:

The store portion of the site is being upgraded and will be inaccesable for a few hours.

Note that “inaccessible” is misspelled.

And that it’s not just off by one letter so you might think it’s a typo. Clearly the person who wrote it didn’t know how to spell the word and couldn’t be bothered to look it up.

I really hate things like that. It’s a minor defect but it has a high embarrassment factor, in that it’s going to be perceived as evidence of overall negligence.

We might as well post a message saying

Dear Customer,

We hold you in complete contempt. If we can’t be bothered to find and fix errors as obvious as this, you may rest assured that we employ no quality control measures whatsoever.

Please go away.

How does something like this happen?

I’ll tell you how:

People need to have a sense that the work they’re doing is important and that doing it well is worthwhile.

Unfortunately, our management team has shown a willingness to build and launch web sites that they know do not meet any sort of professional quality standards.

The result is an anti-quality culture that breaks down people’s inherent pride in their own work.

How hard are you willing to work in pursuit of excellence if it’s obvious that no one cares about it?

Thus spoke The Programmer.