WTF???

Okay, that woman called me the night before last and after I had told her to call. By then, I'd written her off, especially as she seemed to have blown me off when I went to her office. Well, she said something that sounded like, "you're one of the ones I hired," but her phone was cutting out as it sounded like she was on her cell. So I wasn't sure I heard her right, you know? So I'm trying to listen through the gaps and static to hear the rest of what she's saying to try to get it from context. And first of all, I have no idea why this woman called me out of the blue to ask me to interview with her. I have NO experience in web design. I have never designed a website before. Well, there was this silly college thing that I did with free downloaded software, but that was a long time ago and it wasn't very good. So, using regular stuff, I haven't done it. I don't even have Dreamweaver. I'd like to, but I don't. But even when I took the Dreamweaver class, we didn't design a site from scratch. We worked from material that was already given to us. So I wouldn't know the first thing about it. But she called me because she'd seen my resume on the SAC job board. On top of that, without even really interviewing me, she hired me. Really. I'm not joking. I can't tell you how shocked I am. I'm SOOOOO not qualified for this job. I'll do my best, and I'll try to learn what I don't know, but the first job she's given me is a toughie. It should be simple. I'm just updating her website. See, just altering something that's already there, right? Wrong.

First, she doesn't have the original files for the site. The only version of the site is what's on the internet. The links don't work. So I had to get the main portion of her site from a link from another website that she designed. I guess I was just using it as a guide, because I couldn't connect to her site to download the files from there. It took forever. I finally got an FTP software that worked and connected and I downloaded the files. Problem solved, right? Wrong. There are TONS of extra files. It took an HOUR to download all of it. There's no way it should have taken that long or that much space. There must be about 40 or 50 folders that have nothing in them. A lot of files are just gibberish (not even HTML code--I know what that looks like). Some of them are from old versions of the website. Well, when you update a website, you're supposed to download the old files and upload the new files. You don't keep all of it on the server at the same time. PLUS, he even has files there that are from completely different websites, like not even her website at all. And all of it is there in her file. The stuff that IS from her website is all published and therefore, there aren't layers, so I can't alter what's already there. Maybe if I knew HTML I could, but GoLive won't let me alter it at all. This would have been SOOOO much easier with the original files, I can't even tell you. Not an easy project for me as my first one. And I told her to please give me easy stuff to start me out. Yeah, thanks.

So, I don't know where to start. I might have to just build it all from scratch and start all over. I'll have to prepare her for that, of course, as she liked that site and just wanted me to correct the errors the other guy left. I just don't know what to do. I wish she'd give it to the more experienced guy and let me do something else. But for some reason she trusts me to do it and she thinks I won't let her down. I'm terrified I will. I mean, I'm glad to have a job, at last, and I'm relieved, but at the same time, I feel like I can't do it and I'll end up looking again anyway. I just feel like I shouldn't get too excited about it in case it doesn't work out. It's starting out as part-time and at $10.00 an hour, but after her website gets updated (????) it could turn to full-time. I'm also hoping I'll do a good job (or else prove myself indispensable in other ways) so that I can angle for a raise down the line. I really don't want to lose this job!