how much is a man worth (like a dollar)

it is 'administrative assistants day', so the old man bought us pizza.

when lunch arrived, he gave a speech that began with:

'asinine inc. is doing ok. not great. not as good as this time last year. but it will likely get better this year.'

apparently we'll be getting raises this year. small ones.

after most people had eaten, there were two boxes left on the table. the old man walked by diane's desk:

the old man: it looks like we're going to be about two pizzas over, so factor that into your equation. maybe get less salad.
diane: they aren't done yet. people are still coming back for more.
the old man: it looks we'll be about two over. factor that in.

so, two pizzas cost $25.98. divide that by twenty employees to get ~$1.30. none of us is worth that extra buck.

play to your strengths

sometimes, writing penalties into a contract can be a good motivational tool. if there is a chance that you won't get paid, you may be motivated to do a better job and ship on time.

however, if your track record is such that your company has

a) never shipped on time, and
b) never shipped a good release

it is generally a good idea not to sign a contract that says you're going to start knocking money off the bill for each day you are late and for each bug that is found.

also, be sure to stop at $0. you don't want to have to tell your employees, 'there is a possibility that we'll be sending a check with the release.'

that which has no value...

'we can be as low-cost as anyone in this business.' -- the old man.

that's not the story. that's just something the old man said recently that really sums up asinine, inc's approach to business -- charge less.

don't make the best quality software. don't offer the best technical support options. don't deliver on time. just charge less. we do a lot of stuff for free that most (all) other software companies would (justifiably) charge for, and when someone says, 'hey, we could charge for this,' there is a lecture about how sometimes you have to do free stuff to create customer goodwill, and we 'don't understand the business side of things.'

not long ago, a customer called in and asked for an enhancement. kelly forwarded the request on to people who make decisions and told the guy he would hear from them soon. the guy was emailing every day -- he was very excited about the enhancement, and had even gone so far as to come up with a design.

he specified, repeatedly, that he was willing to pay for this enhancement.

the decisionmakers decided it would be better to put this enhancement in, for free, 'by the end of the year.'

the guy said he would pay to get it in sooner.

asinine, inc said 'no thanks.'

(pause)

the guy also asked for two other enhancements. he was willing to pay for those as well.

we're making them a part of the original enhancement request and doing them for free.

(pause)

nothing says, 'our product is worthless' like an unwillingness to accept payment for it.

write down the process for not talking anymore

i can't even begin to wrap my head around the exact details of what happened, so i'm going to set you up with some background and then show you what i tweeted.

regina, the admin assistant, went to tom's desk to ask him what his process was for 'running the backup tapes.' his process was pretty difficult:
1. remove old tape
2. insert new tape

the next 20 minutes consisted of a lot of repetition, including the following gem:

"so are they actual tapes?"

i messaged kelly in tech support to ask if that was seriously happening behind me. it really was.


and now, my tweets:
admin assistant is questioning the IT guy about the backup tape process. NO, there is no written process for "remove tape. insert tape."

wow, she seriously just said that there should be a written process so "other people could do it" if IT guy isn't here. OTHER PEOPLE KNOW.

apparently the boss is getting lists of everything everyone does so when they leave he can replace them easily.

I'm no business dude, but it seems like a better place to focus would be on job satisfaction. But what do I know.

I am going to make a noose out of ethernet cables