WordPress gives me all the feels, but at the end of the day, it’s still work — a labor of love.

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” ~Confucius

All due respect to Confucius, but loving what you do doesn’t make every day full of hearts, flowers, candy, and rainbows. 

[clickToTweet tweet=”All due respect to Confucius, but loving what you do doesn’t make every day full of hearts, flowers, & rainbows. ” quote=”All due respect to Confucius, but loving what you do doesn’t make every day full of hearts, flowers, & rainbows. ” theme=”style5″]

Along with building WordPress websites comes clients. And clients come with demands. And expectations. And poor-quality graphics. And six modes of communication. And…You get the idea. 

We don’t work in a vacuum. Or a bubble. Or (I wish) a cone of silence. We work with people. People can be amazing. People can be really trying. And even the amazing ones can be frustrating at times. 

Meeting Client Demands

I have built more than 200 sites over the last three years. I have delightful clients. I have clients who not only pay on time, but pay in advance. I have clients that have overpaid because they appreciate the work I do. They have been generous in recommending me to others. They have been fun to work with. Some have even become friends over time.

Others, not so much.

Some clients are demanding of things that just can’t be done, on an impossible timeline, and for way less than I charge. Handling them takes extra time and effort — if I even want the job.

And channels of communication? I have clients that communicate through Facebook, texting, Twitter, phone, email, and even in person. Managing multiple communication channels comes with its own set of challenges.

Then There are WordPress Challenges

Most of the time sites work like they are supposed to. But…there are those times when plugins don’t play well with each other, or with your theme. The horror of a “white screen of death,” missing images, broken links, and the occasional hacked site. There are older sites that need to be made responsive. There are slow load times. There are lost passwords, client mess-ups, huge uploads, and more. 

And Basic Web/Hosting Challenges

Sometimes, no matter how well we build a site, it still doesn’t work well. There are caching issues, server problems, email challenges. You get the idea.

But WordPress is Like Your Child

Just as you still love a child who has misbehaved, at the end of the day you can’t help but still be in love with WordPress. We embrace it with all its amazing qualities, and take the occasional issues that go along with loving it.

[clickToTweet tweet=”WordPress gives us friendships, colleagues, clients, and a living. Yes, WordPress is a labor of love. #WordPress” quote=”WordPress gives us friendships, colleagues, clients, and a living. Yes, WordPress is a labor of love.” theme=”style5″]

Because, at the end of the day, WordPress is good to us. It provides us with an open source CMS that allows us to build a corner of the web for every client, while staking a claim for ourselves. WordPress encompasses a community that we become an integral part of. WordPress gives us friendships, colleagues, clients, and a living.

Yes, WordPress is a labor of love.

 

Questions?

Email me or use the form in the sidebar to submit your ideas and questions, and they may show up in a future post.

About Me

Overextended, overcommitted, entrepreneur, volunteer, and social butterfly. Avid Scrabble player. Tea snob. Mom. School board member. Marketing fanatic. 11th hour expert. WordPress Meetup Coordinator. WordCamp speaker. WordCamp organizer. Frequent WordCamp attendee.

I am the owner and marketing diva at Marketed by Michelle.

Follow me on Twitter @michelleames.