What Do an Old Car and a Website Have in Common?

A little anecdote from everyday life - about why tinkering helps you progress and why it's still good to know a professional who is ready to assist with questions.

Small but Loyal

My clients know this vehicle. They often find it amusing how old and battered I appear, much like the famous "Inspector Columbo." Not exactly representative of a successful company, and certainly not of a modern internet agency. It is, after all, an Audi, but a tiny A2, and it has now surpassed the 20-year mark. By no means a status symbol, but I love the car. It’s not as easy to repair as a Beetle, but much simpler than the modern computers you find on the roads today. With a large sunroof, a practically stowable back seat, and unbeatable low maintenance costs, it’s no beauty anymore, and it never was. However, it is a practical little vehicle. If you want, you can even fit a whole 2-meter mattress inside and comfortably sleep on the way to vacation - with a view of the starry sky included!

But this morning, not much was working. It’s Advent season - the days are getting shorter, and the nights colder. Last night, the thermometer dropped to -8 degrees. Too low for the old battery of my trusty little car. It finally gave up this morning.

The Tinkerers Own the World

So off to get a new battery. I was sure I could handle the installation myself. That would be a laugh. I’m not a born handyman, but I’m not completely inexperienced either, and I’m blessed with a healthy curiosity. Why call a professional for everything when you can tinker with it yourself and maybe learn something new in the process? The important thing with the battery is to pay attention to the order. Disconnect black first, then red, to avoid a short circuit - and later reconnect in reverse order. Secure it well, insert the vent hose, that sounds doable. The tinkerers own the world.

So, I got to work. Everything went like clockwork. Unscrew the bracket, disconnected the old battery and wrestleed it out, then put in the new battery and reconnected the terminals. And then it happened: I couldn’t get the plate that was supposed to hold the battery in place screwed in all the way. Something was stuck. So, I took the bracket out again to check. Compared it with the old battery, but everything looked the same. The bracket has two small notches that should snap into the recesses on the side of the battery. So, I wiggled the battery slightly back and forth, tried again - but the bracket wouldn’t secure. Out again, wiggle again, maybe try with force (after all, it was still around the freezing point)? Nothing helped. The battery was back in and properly connected, the radio was already working again. But it wasn’t secure.

What do you do in such a situation? First, Google it. But it wasn’t easy to describe the problem accurately. "Battery bracket won’t go back in"? Frustration rises. Maybe I’m not as skilled as I thought. But the problem remained. Ignoring it is not a good idea, as an unsecured battery can get damaged more quickly. On the other hand, I have enough else to do, and spending hours tinkering with the car is not an efficient solution for me. I would much rather develop creative things for our clients, something I really can do well.

He Who Doesn't Ask, Doesn't Win

In the end, I went back to the workshop - at least already with a functioning car. I explained my problem to the mechanic, and he, who had surely changed thousands of batteries in his life, knew within seconds what the issue was: Batteries are delivered new with small strips on the sides that are attached to the ledge where the bracket should snap in. Apparently, some manufacturers require a higher ledge, while others need a narrower one. The only problem was that the strips were the same color and had the same recesses as the factory ledge. So this clever solution (in the past, there were different batteries for different manufacturers) was practically unrecognizable to the layperson.

After 5 minutes, I had pried out the strips, and the bracket snapped in exactly as intended.

And the Moral of the Story

What do we learn from all this? I'm not talking about batteries here. I'm generally addressing the question of how much one can and should do oneself.

Many think that creating a website or writing texts for the internet is not that complicated; they can manage it themselves. And they are right - for the most part! Even if you don't have 20 years of experience and have built hundreds of large and small websites, you can get quite far in this area and teach yourself most of it. And I want to encourage you - feel free to try it out! You can only benefit and expand your knowledge.

But what do you do when faced with tricky questions? When your website doesn't rank well on Google? Or when you're not sure if everything you're building is legally compliant? Or if you need a special function that is giving you a headache?

I want to offer you this: Feel free to reach out to us with your concerns, just as I naturally went to the expert when I didn't know what to do. We are happy to help you and will stand by you even if you - for whatever reason - do not want to take advantage of the full service that other clients enjoy with us.