designer & volunteer: a cringe-worthy dialogue in Random Commentary

Volunteer: hey! Our president gave me the go ahead to start a blog on the website. Can you help?

Me (the designer), to self: Oh that’s cool; someone else can generate ongoing content for the site.

Me: Great! The site already runs on WordPress so adding a blog will be easy. Are you familiar with WordPress?

Volunteer: lol no I’ve actually never blogged in my life. I’m a fast learner though!

cue silent mournful cringe

Me: Lucky for you WordPress is very easy and well documented. I’m sure you’d get a great start just by googling how to blog with WordPress. In the meantime I will set up a section on the website for it and get a login for you.

time passes, designer procrastinates, partly due to changed hosting login info she doesn’t have and partly to see how proactive this fast learning volunteer will be

Volunteer: any luck with the blog and the login for me?

Me: Sorry, I’ve been focusing on the redesign. I’ll try to have it ready next week. Did you find any helpful tutorials on WordPress?

Volunteer: No I haven’t thought about it. Was waiting for the login.

cue blank stare of wtf-seriously?

Me: Oh. I’d really recommend checking something out. I can set up a sample blog for you to play around with. Better to experiment on something where trial and error won’t matter!

sets volunteer up on personal test WordPress site and provides login details. Crickets chirp.

And until I see something on there where she’s started to play around with it, I shall NOT open the doors to the land of glorious disaster on the live website. Even though I will be restricting the crap out of her access.

Sheez.
Show a little due diligence, ESPECIALLY when you have NO experience.

I can only imagine the hideously formatted posts and unoptimized imagery that awaits.

If I compile a list of great blog examples, anyone think she’ll look at it? No?

Me either.

Last updated September 09, 2015