D+9

It’s after midnight. I’ve been trying all day to get the developers to transfer the website onto my host company’s server. The host is a major global hosting firm that does this scores of times every day. They also have a 24x7 helpdesk in case of need. But my developers can’t seem to use their system. I’ve setup FTP accounts for them, established a Wordpress iteration on the server ready for them to load into, and given them all the access codes they need, but to no avail. In desperation, I’ve given them access to my master login ID and password so they have full access to all areas of the site to find what they need. The problem is they can’t explain what they’re looking for. I’ve tried to act as intermediary with the Live Chat helpdesk – but the engineers there have given all the support they can, and they can’t now understand what my developers are finding so difficult. The answer is threefold; they don’t have the IT skills to do this, they don’t have enough prior experience to guide them and they don’t have enough English to liaise with the help desk directly, or to navigate the host site. They are stumbling around, learning by trial and error. It’s taken fifteen hours so far today, and now they are saying not to expect the site to be transferred until noon tomorrow. They are now starting to blame the host company and myself for not having given them the IT guidance they need to do the job. I thought that was part of what I was contracting from a web development company – the ability to load their developed website onto a major hosting platform. It should be their core competence – but like their graphic design and their Wordpress development capability, it seems to have been smoke and mirrors. Well … tomorrow’s another day. Another day late, that is.