It's just surreal

[mapsedge]

In my last post, I talked about Bob, a regular customer of The Stage Coffee House who showed up one evening and presented the owner with a website for the business, unsolicited. It's not a good site, but it was better than nothing which, while the real site was in development, was what the business had. Fast forward a couple of months, the owner tells me to use whatever I want from the volunteer site, that everything's cool, and I do. The next day, I get a homemade C & D full of righteous indignation over the use of the content.

"If you're going to use my stuff, you have to pay me."

Wow, really? You build a website on your own, put it at the owner's disposal for free, and get pissed off when he does? Fuck off.

Can't say that, naturally, hafta play the political game, so instead I apologize, remove his content (and replace it with better, mine to be exact.) The owner emails him, takes the responsibility, smooths the ruffled feathers. 

Today I get an email from Bob, not exactly conciliatory, but written as if the weekend's dust-up never even happened, requesting some verbiage and a picture or two, and complimenting me on a beautiful website.

Wow, again. Bi-polar much? Fuck off, again. God damn, I hate playing nice.

The only practical burr under my saddle is that Bob bought a domain name - a name I might have chosen - and has shown no interest in selling it. He has no reason beyond spite to keep it, there is no benefit to him. Tomorrow I'll buy a different one: I'll try to keep it unique, but there's only so many ways you can phrase "The Stage Coffee House and Deli" and they may be similar enough to cause confusion.

The hope is that Bob will get tired of volunteering his time and just let the other site go. In the meantime, we just deal. My domain will be on all the menus and business cards.