When to change a progammer?

I am a small NGO (one person) with a website in Plone who is completely fed up with my programmer.   My programmer has explained to me that I am such a small fish that any programmer is going to put me at the bottom of the list, but even when I offer to pay more to get long-standing problems fixed,  my programmer fails to get in touch. (I told him I was so frustrated that I wanted to seek a new programmer, and he said "you'll always be the bottom priority wherever you go.")  

At this point I would love to change programmers, and maybe even change the CMS (it seems that Drupal is more popular these days, and possibly even easy enough to use I could make my own changes) but I don't know what the consequences will be.   Is it considered unethical somehow to leave your programmer?  If he is such a pain at this point, won't he be even more of a pain if I try to leave him, and make it difficult to migrate my content?  Is there a rule of thumb about this? 

Thanks in advance for advice.

Get rid of him.

If he's not willing to make you a priority, find someone who will. Even if you're a "small fish," your jobs are not worthless.

and...
No, it is not unethical to leave your programmer. It is a business relationship. If he's not doing what you need, then move on.

CMS

Great idea. Move to a platform that you're comfortable working in. That way, you can be more involved managing the site/design/content. Plus, Drupal is a popular platform, so you can avoid getting locked-in to a particular programmer.

Migrating the site will take a little time, but it shouldn't be a problem. Make sure you have a copy of your current site. If nothing else, you can browse to each page and save it as an HTML file

hanks, David, for your quick response.  I appreciate it.   Just to make sure that I understood you, are you saying there are more Drupal programmers out there than Plone programmers?  It seems like that's the case, but I am such a novice in all of this, I can't tell.

 

Unfortunately, your programmer doesn't know the first thing about how to maintain a good client relationship.

I agree that you should definately get rid of him.

The only thing to watch out for is if your programmer has been keeping any of your sensitive data that you don't already have access to yourself (perhaps website login passwords, etc.).  Anything important that you don't already have, be sure to request that he provide you with this information.  It belongs to you anyway.

There are plenty of other programmers who will NOT consider you a bottom priority -- you deserve to be working with one that will be happy to get your requirements met.

Yann

Step one is to ascertain who owns what.

Did this programmer register your domain name? Is it in his name or your company's name? Does he host the website on his server? Do you have a contract with this programmer? (Not that it cannot be broken for cause)

Can you perform a backup of your site? If so, make that backup just BEFORE you notify this programmer that his skills are no longer needed. At that same time, if you have the ability change any passwords that might be known by the programmer. These might include hosting account passwords, FTP passwords, domain registration passwords, mail account passwords, etc. The programmer might also be registered as the technical contact for your domain registration, too, even if it is correctly set up with your organization as the owner.

 

Everyone pushes on a falling fence, and in this case, the falling fence is the aforementioned programmer.  It's almost too easy to blame him here, IMO.

Playing devil's advocate, why wouldn't he (in this economy), only worry about focusing on his larger clients?  The work he does for other larger clients is quite likely, (a) steady, (b) uncontested, (c) reoccuring. I've been in many similar circumstances where my corporate masters have told me more or less the exact same thing in even more blunt and crass terms, and I've been "the bad guy" for relaying that to my customers, who I felt had a right to know why I'm not calling them back.

So, it seems to me, his problem was perhaps not what he was doing as much as the fact that he was a bit too honest or blunt.  In the whole grand scheme of IT professionals, being too honest or too blunt is a devil I can live with.  Too many other "professionals" are trained to say "yes" to everything you say you want, and then play all sorts of games later on down the road when the rubber meets the road.

If you really need a Drupal, Plone, or (insert whatever CMS you might use) programmer, I would strongly suggest being more proactive about getting some alternate resources.  For example, try putting up some ads in CraigsList or possibly putting up a request for professional services on one of the listservs or forum boards.  Explain your situation -- services requested, work you couldn't get your previous programmer to do, budget, etc. -- and maybe someone else will bite. I'd recommend being honest about what you did not like about the previous guy in the hopes of finding someone who is a bit more compatible with your NGO's special needs.

Also, I would take tclaremont's advice and make sure that you have a clean backup of everything.  Diplomacy is saying "Nice doggie while picking up a stick."  Or, as Ronald Reagan would often say to Mikhail Gorbachev, "Доверяй, но проверяй."  (Trust, but verify).

Situations like what you are in make me very upset - as a small web and marketing company service providers like what you have run into tend to hurt the industry. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who over promise, under deliver, and ultimately tend to get in way over their head.

 

As a couple people mentioned, possibly you should look into switching to a more widely accepted web CMS. Our company specializes in Joomla web sites and I would be more than happy to chat with you about some of the stuff we have done - including work for small associations and currently developing a site for a local chapter of the Boys and Girls Club.

 

Drupal is a great CMS, but I think for associations and non-profits that Joomla is a far better platform. This is in part because there is an AMAZING developer community as well as tons of companies supporting it with plugins and components that can pretty much do what ever it is you want the site to do.

If he's going to be that rude about putting you bottom of the pile, go elsewhere. There are plenty of web developers who do Drupal work, but I think fewer do Plone.

A web developer who is paid for a service is no different to any other kind of tradesman and you should be able to switch to another as you wish.

Make sure you have all your site's passwords and a copy of all site files and a backup of any databases used before you switch. Did you sign a contract? Check its provisions.

And if you do switch to using someone else, change all the passwords (domain, hosting, FTP etc) as soon as possible.