Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2005-05-28 11:03:55 - Graham Ellis
I think I've a huge amount of time for people who are learning Python, PHP and Perl ... delighted to help them via Opentalk or by individual email if they've got confidential information that they don't want to post.
But just occasionally, I feel I'm being taken advantage of - there's a small minority who seem to expect me to drop everything and answer them, for free, without even a "please" or "Thank You". A terse "Reply as soon as possible" on to the end of an email I just received caused me to chuckle. Well now - I do normally answer my emails as soon as possible but now that you mention it, perhaps I shouldn't give this one such a high priority.
Under normal circumstances, I think you'll find the levels of support I offer are quite extraordinary - have a look at all the solved questions on Opentalk, for example, and I'm always happy to put a little time into post-course advise for our students by email or even in person - if they feel it's worth travelling here for a couple of hours of assistance one evening, they can gladly have it. We're here for the long haul and looking after your existing customers and contacts is one heck of a better way to set up future business that a lot of "cold" prospecting. Yet examples written get added to course materials, opentalk answers get archived on public pages that the search engines index, so the very act of helping existing contacts does also spead the work for people who haven't come across us previously.
We've a saying "Come as a student, leave as a friend". It works - and you can be a student of the technology via this web site and become a friend just as much as you can become a friend if you come on a course.