OT: Evaluating an Application

[Fairlight]

On Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 03:34:25PM -0500, Laura Brody via Filepro-list thus spoke:
> I have been using "good, cheap, or fast; pick any two" as a test. If the
> customer "gets it" and picks which two are most important, I move forward
> with giving him/her a quote. If I get a blank stare and a "I want all 3"
> demand, it is time to cut them loose. The potential customer is too stupid
> to deal with and will cost me 10x in aggravation and Tums than I will make
> in profit. Red flag. Warning Will Robinson! Abort, abort, abort! In the
> past, I have ignored this red flag and I got burned every single time. I
> don't care what my cash flow is at the moment, this customer is going to
> make me wish that I never got into the computer business. They are going to
> drive me nuts, work extra hard to clean up a mess I will warn them about
> and as a cherry on top, they will try to stiff me with the bill when
> everything goes to hell because I did it the way they insisted that I do
> it.  Just not worth it.

100% agreed.  I've learned to cut people loose, unless I am utterly
desperate, which (blessedly) hasn't happened in a decade or so.  And even
then, I would be second-guessing that decision...

> I recently heard about a movie called "Idiocracy" by Mike Judge. It tells
> of an average Army guy who volunteers to go into a hibernation box for a
> year. He wakes up 500 years later. He is arrested and sent to jail. They
> test his IQ and he is the smartest guy on the planet, by far. The movie
> explains that smart people wait until their careers are set and the market
> is good, etc. and never have kids. On the other hand, dumb people are
> having sex with anyone that is marginally willing. Our example dumb guy has
> 7 kids and the wife is pregnant again. "I thought you was on the pill". So
> is the neighbor lady, and his other girl friend. A couple of generations of
> this and we have 300+ people with an IQ below 75. I don't think that we
> have to wait 500 years for this to happen. I peg it at 50 years or less.

What makes you think it hasn't been happening for the last 30 years?
Parenting as I knew it is formally dead.  What we have is the result, along
with the attendant entitled brats who think the world owes them 100km-wide
Safe Spaces.

Seriously, the collective IQ seems to have dropped sharply in the last
three decades.

m->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis.