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When office efficiency goes too far

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I can understand where he is coming from. He doesn't want to spend money and he doesn't understand the risk. I hear this all the time. Let's face it, computers (servers in general) are pretty reliable. He sees no need to spend all this money when things are working fine. In fact they may continue to do so and he may never have a problem. You need to convince him that, as unlikely as he thinks there won't be any problem, if one occurs it will be big trouble and cost him lots of money. He hears money. Convince him that this will save him money and you'll get his business.
 
The real bottom line to this would be this is a client you don't need. He is pushing you into a no win situation.
Sever never fails- He was right, you were wrong.
Something goes horribly wrong- Why didn't you do the job he hired you to do

Take the easy way out and supply him with a short list of alternate groups that would be more able to fit his (lack) of needs for his business and brush the trouble away.
 
I like clients like that, because when disaster strikes they come crawling to you and you can ream them. If he doesn't want to do any type of backups or DRDs make sure you have him sign a release.
 
Originally posted by: Coalfax
The real bottom line to this would be this is a client you don't need. He is pushing you into a no win situation.
Sever never fails- He was right, you were wrong.
Something goes horribly wrong- Why didn't you do the job he hired you to do

Take the easy way out and supply him with a short list of alternate groups that would be more able to fit his (lack) of needs for his business and brush the trouble away.
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TO add on to that, how about you recommend him to geeksquad instead, might make for some interesting stories later on.
 
I'd draw up some scenarios of server failure and show him how much fixing a disaster will cost verses doing it right the first time. Might change his mind.
 
Originally posted by: knightc2
I can understand where he is coming from. He doesn't want to spend money and he doesn't understand the risk. I hear this all the time. Let's face it, computers (servers in general) are pretty reliable. He sees no need to spend all this money when things are working fine. In fact they may continue to do so and he may never have a problem. You need to convince him that, as unlikely as he thinks there won't be any problem, if one occurs it will be big trouble and cost him lots of money. He hears money. Convince him that this will save him money and you'll get his business.
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He probably doesn't have life or auto insurance either.
 
Originally posted by: Fritzo
Reply with a long email, but only use the first two or three letters of each word.
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:laugh:

I don't think I would want to be his consultant anymore. Maybe if he was paying a ton of money but I don't think that's the case. Yeah, I'd dump his ass.
 
Originally posted by: tfinch2
I like clients like that, because when disaster strikes they come crawling to you and you can ream them. If he doesn't want to do any type of backups or DRDs make sure you have him sign a release.
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I used to work at Circuit City in college, and would have to sell warranties. One co-worker of mine would refuse to help customers who didn't buy the warranty, and then called later with a problem. He would first ask them their name, look them up in the system to see if they bought the warranty. If they hadn't, he would kindly explain, "I see that you refused to buy the warranty. Unfortunately, I won't be able to help you, but I can give you the manufacturer's technical support number."
 
if i was in you shoes i would drop him as a customer asap. Its one thing to not to be up on tech stuff but that email he sent out was just plain retarded.
 
Sounds about right. I was a Business Analyst for a company that sold cellular service billing software. I had to go up to Michigan to train a client on the use of our system...specifically on how to run test billings and production billings. They had one guy in charge of most of the IT functions including running the billings on the system. We had been telling this client for a long time that they needed to run test billings every cycle to ensure that no errors occurred but they refused to listen. It took too much time in their opinion. Nevermind that the results of production billing runs were irreversible.

So, of course, while I'm up there training this guy on how to properly run the test billings and production billings, the asshat proceeds to run a production billing WITHOUT ever running a test billing to verify the results. Mass chaos ensued as EVERY customer on that billing cycle had their bills fvcked up royally because someone in the company had made changes to the billing configuration. Both me and a DBA that was there with me had to be pulled off what we were supposed to be doing (training and DB optimization) to deal with this client-created crisis. I had to endure multiple meetings of biting my tongue and gently reminding them that this was the perfect example of why they needed to run test billings. Didn't matter...our billing software sucked, I sucked, the company sucked, etc etc etc.
 
if he doesnt agree to do backups, make sure he signs a waiver stating that. you don't want to be blamed and sued for data loss if his server dies.
 
Sounds like the engineering company a friend of mine worked for. They were trying to "save their way into profits." They wouldn't invest in cell phones for the company. Instead, if you had you go out to a work site, they would give you a quarter. So when you had a problem, you had to leave the work site, find a pay phone, call, and pray that you wouldn't have to go back to the site to get more information for the person back at the company.

They also had ONE workstation that people had to line up to use...
 
Originally posted by: DaiShan
Originally posted by: E equals MC2
You've done your part. Just move on and wait for the 'i told you so' moment.
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Heh, sadly the event that leads to the "i told you so" moment is usually the only thing that people remember. "What? I thought everything was backed up? I certainly wouldn't have agreed to such a flawed plan" 😉
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That's why document the entire meeting. You had written estimates and such that you gave him right? I'd even go so far as to have him sign the bottom next to where it says "i am declining these services at this time".

So you can then follow up the "i told you so" moment with a "owned" moment right after he says that you never discussed it with him.
 
Originally posted by: Nocturnal
I fix computers for a living and I get the same thing from all sorts of customers. "Why would it take you that long or why does it cost that much just to do this or that?"

I feel you!
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this happens to me almost daily. the thing that gets me is these same people don't talk to their car mechanics or doctors like that "Aww Doc, you're gonna charge how much to save my ass?".

 
Originally posted by: DaiShan
All,

Our IT consultant has pointed out several areas where we can improve efficiency and otherwise increase our productivity. We will all have to make changes over the coming weeks, one thing that I would like to implement that will save us all a little bit of time, is instead of typing out long answers over Jabber, try to use shorthand whenever possible, if its a yes or no question, answer with either y or n. I'll come up with more abreviations later. See me with questions.
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Email back:

n
 
Originally posted by: HotChic
Originally posted by: DaiShan
All,

Our IT consultant has pointed out several areas where we can improve efficiency and otherwise increase our productivity. We will all have to make changes over the coming weeks, one thing that I would like to implement that will save us all a little bit of time, is instead of typing out long answers over Jabber, try to use shorthand whenever possible, if its a yes or no question, answer with either y or n. I'll come up with more abreviations later. See me with questions.
Click to expand...

Email back:

n
Click to expand...

Better yet, email back.

f u




😉
 
Some time ago, back in the 70's I believe, my employer (a very large international corporation) decided there would be a big cost savings to change the spelling of many words in the English language.

As an example, employee, became employe. A major savings by dropping the second and to them, redundant "e". This just made our people appear ignorant to the outside world, in my opinion. To this day, you still see the remnants of this misguided policy.

I was not employed there during that timeframe and am uncertain of exactly when this took place.

Crazy sh!t.
 
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