NOW: paradigm shift

[Fairlight]

In the relative spacial/temporal region of
Sun, Sep 23, 2007 at 07:52:58PM -0700, Bill Campbell achieved the spontaneous
generation of the following:
> On Sun, Sep 23, 2007, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> >Quoting GCC Consulting (Sun, 23 Sep 2007 22:03:05 -0400):
> >[...]
> >> Now time is not just seconds/minutes ticking off on a clock.  Time is our
> >> accumulated knowledge and our ability to apply that knowledge.
> >>
> >> You log into a client's system or arrive there to correct a problem.  You
> >> take care of it with relative ease as you have seen the problem before or
> >> are aware of how to correct the problem.  You render a bill for your
> >> service.  Many times, your client really has no idea of what it took to
> >> correct the problem.  He gets your bill and complains, "you were here for
> >> only xxx, why is you bill so high?"
> >[...]
> >
> >Itemized bill:
> >
> >     Hitting pipe with hammer:   $5
> >     Knowing where to hit it:  $100

Pretty much.  Many years back, someone had an issue with their system that
made things halfway to mostly unusable.  They spent over a day trying to
figure it out.  I think it was like two days.  Then they called me and I
fixed it in about 6hrs once I finally found out where the problem lay.
They were all happy and ready to pay the $450 bill.  Then they asked by and
by what was wrong with it in the first place.  I told them quite truthfully
that it was a one byte error in a configuration file that someone had
poorly edited--and a difference that was deceptively hard to find, at
that.  Suddenly they were upset they were getting charged $450 for one
byte.  They wanted to argue the point, and I pointed out that if I wasn't
going to get paid, I could just take my work back and restore the byte to
exactly what it was before I ever logged in, they could continue looking
for the problem, and we could call it a wash.  My invoice was paid.  Bottom
line is, "I found how to fix it after 6hrs, you couldn't fix it after 2
days of searching, having -caused- the problem to begin with.  What's your
complaint?"

I absolutely get frustrated when you put in the time finding someone else's
error/problem, actually find it, and they want to quibble about how long it
took you to do and how much they're getting charged, when they either would
have wasted (or did waste) more time trying themselves, or flat-out likely
never would have found the problem themselves.  The experience doesn't
exactly grow on trees.  And you -do- put in the actual time and effort, no
matter what the simplicity of the solution is.  It sometimes takes time to
get to that point.  They call it research.

> And related:
> 
>      When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give him
>      what he asks for, instead of what he needs.  This is very
>      strong medicine, and is normally only required once.
> 	 -- The Consultant's Curse:

*chuckle*  Oh, I -love- that!

mark->
-- 
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