Re: tlug: Net Day

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "Scott" == Scott Stone <sstone@example.com> writes:

    Scott> maybe I'm not conveying my point correctly here, but does
    Scott> this make any sense at all?

Yes.  That said ... ;-)

    Scott> Well, this being Japan and all, 

What you say is true anywhere.

    Scott> if we sysadminned for free it might lessen our value in the
    Scott> eyes of other prospective clients/employers.  I'm a darn
    Scott> good sysadmin, and my time is worth good money, and I
    Scott> intend to make people realize that :) I have a propensity

<wiseass>So send 'em an invoice and a check in the same amount.</wiseass>

The best way to do that is to get the headhunters sniffing around your 
desk.  <laugh>  Where you're working with people who have no idea what 
you're doing for them, charging less than you're worth gives them a
distorted idea of what the market value is.

This is why IT people get hosed all the time in industries where IT is
a service, not the product that brings in the revenue.  Everybody else
in the company sees a terminal in front of their face with programs
that sometimes work, and wonders why they need 25 people they've never
seen at their real work, whose main function seems to be saying "No,
it can't be done."

I know one organization where the head of IT came this close || to
getting an arrangement where delays due to changed specs would get
charged off to the department that requested the spec change.  It
didn't happen, but funnily enough, bitching from the underlings in the
content departments no longer gets forwarded to top management without
question by department heads---that accounting change is a gun at
their temples, and they know it will go off if they push IT too hard.

But the underlings don't understand accounting _or_ system operations,
so they're still bitching.

If you're working pro bono, on the other hand, and you make the
victim^H^H^H^H^H^H recipient of your charity watch what you do, and
undertand they're responsible for making it work in the future, you've 
got a shot at getting some respect.  When they say, "boy, that's a lot 
of work!" you can respond "yeah, when I consult I usually charge
$250/hr plus expenses" and get some belief.

    Scott> towards poor people skills, so I have to dazzle people with
    Scott> my ability rather than my smooth talking in order to earn
    Scott> my dinner (ie, I have to be more like Reagan, who did a
    Scott> dang good job of keeping us from being nuked by the
    Scott> soviets, and less like Bill Clinton, who likes to go around
    Scott> screwing every a** in DC and taking credit for the reforms
    Scott> passed by the republican congress) :)

Boy, do you have it backwards!  Reagan had *nothing* but people
skills.  Nuked by the Soviets?  Puh-leeze.

Having the IQ of three Reagans and the education of 10 unfortunately
doesn't make Clinton a better President than Reagan, though.

    Scott> Which isn't to say I wouldn't like to also be benevolent
    Scott> and work for real cheap to set up or even maintain one or
    Scott> two servers for a school, because that looks good and it
    Scott> makes people like you because you're a nice guy, but at the
    Scott> same time they don't think you're a bum who wants to just
    Scott> mess with their systems.  If you charge SOME $, they think
    Scott> you're more of a legitimate sysadmin and not just some guy
    Scott> who likes to push buttons and drink lots of caffeine.

No, pro bono work has to be free.  Then you can quote any price on
your time that you want.  Giving discounts on charitable work is a
good way to encourage leeches to ask for the same.
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