I don't understand some clients
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Its now 2:38 am and I just got off the phone with a client. He called because he really needs me to show up tommorrow morning and install Office XP Pro on 12 machines. He apparently went to Best Buy and bought 12 copies of Office. Does anybody here folow my concern? He knows he could of went to the Computer Shop and bought Office XP with 12 licenses for a lot less. We have a mutual friend that has done the licensing for his OSes and saved him considerable money. Beyond that he said he'd pay me the usual. I'm not complaining, but he pays me from the time I leave home, till the time I get home. And its not like its 10 bucks an hour or anything. I just can't understand how a business has that much money to just throw around, especially with the economy the way it is right now. Anybody else have a client that would pay $500 bucks for a $20 doloar program? It just boggles my mind.
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
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Its now 2:38 am and I just got off the phone with a client. He called because he really needs me to show up tommorrow morning and install Office XP Pro on 12 machines. He apparently went to Best Buy and bought 12 copies of Office. Does anybody here folow my concern? He knows he could of went to the Computer Shop and bought Office XP with 12 licenses for a lot less. We have a mutual friend that has done the licensing for his OSes and saved him considerable money. Beyond that he said he'd pay me the usual. I'm not complaining, but he pays me from the time I leave home, till the time I get home. And its not like its 10 bucks an hour or anything. I just can't understand how a business has that much money to just throw around, especially with the economy the way it is right now. Anybody else have a client that would pay $500 bucks for a $20 doloar program? It just boggles my mind.
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
What kind of business is it?
Jon Sagara
A bottle a night isn't alcoholism - it's persistence! -- A coworker, jokingly -
Its now 2:38 am and I just got off the phone with a client. He called because he really needs me to show up tommorrow morning and install Office XP Pro on 12 machines. He apparently went to Best Buy and bought 12 copies of Office. Does anybody here folow my concern? He knows he could of went to the Computer Shop and bought Office XP with 12 licenses for a lot less. We have a mutual friend that has done the licensing for his OSes and saved him considerable money. Beyond that he said he'd pay me the usual. I'm not complaining, but he pays me from the time I leave home, till the time I get home. And its not like its 10 bucks an hour or anything. I just can't understand how a business has that much money to just throw around, especially with the economy the way it is right now. Anybody else have a client that would pay $500 bucks for a $20 doloar program? It just boggles my mind.
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
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What kind of business is it?
Jon Sagara
A bottle a night isn't alcoholism - it's persistence! -- A coworker, jokinglyIts a very small company that designs circuit boards. Yeah, Electrical Engineers and Software Developers, who need someone else to setup and maintain their networks, install virus patches, and now install their software. Amazingly, some of these guys don't even know how to copy a file using windows explorer. One of them asked me if I could create a shortcut on his desktop for the command prompt. I think I'll tell them that their PCs need new State Inspection Stickers, we might even need to align the headlights.
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
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Its now 2:38 am and I just got off the phone with a client. He called because he really needs me to show up tommorrow morning and install Office XP Pro on 12 machines. He apparently went to Best Buy and bought 12 copies of Office. Does anybody here folow my concern? He knows he could of went to the Computer Shop and bought Office XP with 12 licenses for a lot less. We have a mutual friend that has done the licensing for his OSes and saved him considerable money. Beyond that he said he'd pay me the usual. I'm not complaining, but he pays me from the time I leave home, till the time I get home. And its not like its 10 bucks an hour or anything. I just can't understand how a business has that much money to just throw around, especially with the economy the way it is right now. Anybody else have a client that would pay $500 bucks for a $20 doloar program? It just boggles my mind.
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
Well, is his a startup business? Perhaps he is new to this software licenses kind of thing and if so, maybe you can guide him along. It really hurts to see him spend so much buying 12 copies when it can be cheaper to get 12 licenses.:sigh: Weiye, Chen When pursuing your dreams, don't forget to enjoy your life...
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Its a very small company that designs circuit boards. Yeah, Electrical Engineers and Software Developers, who need someone else to setup and maintain their networks, install virus patches, and now install their software. Amazingly, some of these guys don't even know how to copy a file using windows explorer. One of them asked me if I could create a shortcut on his desktop for the command prompt. I think I'll tell them that their PCs need new State Inspection Stickers, we might even need to align the headlights.
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
zenboy wrote: Amazingly, some of these guys don't even know how to copy a file using windows explorer. One of them asked me if I could create a shortcut on his desktop for the command prompt. You should tell them to get a Windows reference book from the library or bookstore. Sometimes, what appears to be easy to us doesn't mean the same for others. Weiye, Chen When pursuing your dreams, don't forget to enjoy your life...
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Well, is his a startup business? Perhaps he is new to this software licenses kind of thing and if so, maybe you can guide him along. It really hurts to see him spend so much buying 12 copies when it can be cheaper to get 12 licenses.:sigh: Weiye, Chen When pursuing your dreams, don't forget to enjoy your life...
An addendum to what I posted earlier, I should have been more clear. Last year, we got him Win XP Pro with 30 licenses, for 30 computers. Saved him a lot of money. After frequent discussions, he knows that we could have done the same for Office. On the phone he told me that he wanted it right away. I reiterated that we could haev gotten the Office CD in less than a day, since a major distributor is only 25 miles away. And that with a phone call, we could have gotten the licenses. To answer your question, no it is not a start up business. And he knows better.
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
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Its now 2:38 am and I just got off the phone with a client. He called because he really needs me to show up tommorrow morning and install Office XP Pro on 12 machines. He apparently went to Best Buy and bought 12 copies of Office. Does anybody here folow my concern? He knows he could of went to the Computer Shop and bought Office XP with 12 licenses for a lot less. We have a mutual friend that has done the licensing for his OSes and saved him considerable money. Beyond that he said he'd pay me the usual. I'm not complaining, but he pays me from the time I leave home, till the time I get home. And its not like its 10 bucks an hour or anything. I just can't understand how a business has that much money to just throw around, especially with the economy the way it is right now. Anybody else have a client that would pay $500 bucks for a $20 doloar program? It just boggles my mind.
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
Similar thing happened with me this week. A friend asked me to give a once over of the IT system his company is putting in. 35,000$NZ All hardware leased, 3 boxes, software. In 10 minutes I trimmed 19,000 from their bill. And not a cent for me. :-( Believe it or not an "Apple MAC" solution would have been more affordable. IT expenditure, has become a real black hole for a lot of small businesses. They are dammed if they don't use it. And they are cursed when they do make a decision. Companies seem so keen to throw money at IT to make problems go away, that it's frightening. Small businesses can't afford to have a fulltime IT support person, so they are left to fend of the sales type people themselves. Regardz Colin J Davies
*** WARNING *
This could be addictive
**The minion's version of "Catch :bob: "It's a real shame that people as stupid as you can work out how to use a computer. said by Christian Graus in the Soapbox
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Similar thing happened with me this week. A friend asked me to give a once over of the IT system his company is putting in. 35,000$NZ All hardware leased, 3 boxes, software. In 10 minutes I trimmed 19,000 from their bill. And not a cent for me. :-( Believe it or not an "Apple MAC" solution would have been more affordable. IT expenditure, has become a real black hole for a lot of small businesses. They are dammed if they don't use it. And they are cursed when they do make a decision. Companies seem so keen to throw money at IT to make problems go away, that it's frightening. Small businesses can't afford to have a fulltime IT support person, so they are left to fend of the sales type people themselves. Regardz Colin J Davies
*** WARNING *
This could be addictive
**The minion's version of "Catch :bob: "It's a real shame that people as stupid as you can work out how to use a computer. said by Christian Graus in the Soapbox
I've been there too. We had a SAS system in place: I spent a week writing a big SAS program to do what we needed, but instead of using it they spend $5 million on a custom version of "Manugistics" You wanna talk about an IT black hole. I just assume that a company with 100 employees would do so much better than a company with 3000 employees. The last company I worked for was huge (3000+). Our department had about 3 dozen 21" IBM monitors (used one day) sitting in a cubicle from when we did a training seminar. Another department needed to buy a few monitors, so they did. Why on earth could they not use the ones we had left over? I brought up the fact that they could requisition them from us, since we wouldn't use them. They would have just transfered money from their budget to ours and taken a few monitors. But instead they bought their own. I was told last week, that a year later the monitors are just sitting there. 3 had been thrown out. Another Black Hole I have an idea, maybe we could write a book called "IT horror stories" or "IT Black Holes" - #1 New York Times best seller :)
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
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I've been there too. We had a SAS system in place: I spent a week writing a big SAS program to do what we needed, but instead of using it they spend $5 million on a custom version of "Manugistics" You wanna talk about an IT black hole. I just assume that a company with 100 employees would do so much better than a company with 3000 employees. The last company I worked for was huge (3000+). Our department had about 3 dozen 21" IBM monitors (used one day) sitting in a cubicle from when we did a training seminar. Another department needed to buy a few monitors, so they did. Why on earth could they not use the ones we had left over? I brought up the fact that they could requisition them from us, since we wouldn't use them. They would have just transfered money from their budget to ours and taken a few monitors. But instead they bought their own. I was told last week, that a year later the monitors are just sitting there. 3 had been thrown out. Another Black Hole I have an idea, maybe we could write a book called "IT horror stories" or "IT Black Holes" - #1 New York Times best seller :)
"C++ : Where friends have access to your private members." — Gavin Russell Baker.
Yeah, I have heard that monitor story before. Really large companies seem to become disfunctional like small governments beauracracies do. Also no manager is capable of making decisions and what should be decided in an hr takes a couple of weeks to be seen to. I guess all businesses have their own problems. Regardz Colin J Davies
*** WARNING *
This could be addictive
**The minion's version of "Catch :bob: "It's a real shame that people as stupid as you can work out how to use a computer. said by Christian Graus in the Soapbox