Create an MS Access database

I got a call out of the blue the other day from a man looking to put his client data into an access database. A friend of mine in Ann Arbor Michigan gave this man my phone number claiming I was a programming God to which I replied that he had stretched that to the moon and back. However since I was taking classes for becoming a network administrator, and doing the exact same thing asked of me in class, I decided to offer the man my services for thirty dollars an hour. Since I can remember using MS Word, I can remember looking through MS Access, and I have been messing with it as an amateur practically my whole computer life… how could I not be able to handle the assignment?

You know how you open MS Access for the first, or even the second and third times, and you really don’t have a clue what you’re doing, you just finger paint with it a bit. The person who was probably responsible for actually using the requested database made me a finger painting of what they wanted in Access and added some text in an email hoping for what every first time user hopes from MS Access, connected record navigation across open forms of course. Is that even possible in the program? Sure. But not from someone six weeks deep into Network+ Certification classes who has never learned to use MS Access.

What path would you go down if you were in my position? I can’t let my friend down by refusing the project. I can’t sit at my computer all day and night slamming my head against the monitor. I can’t charge my new client for my mistakes and learning setbacks. I can’t hand my new client a product that they didn’t ask for. I checked out that free trial for Microsoft Office 2007, I am really impressed with it. I’m saving money to buy it because of all the tools it offers for my new networking service I will be creating.