Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
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· Score: 1
Sounds like you don't actually write software.
A new application could go many months before it's in a state to be tested by the users. By the time it's in that state, a dozen different people could all have contributed to it. How is a non-technical manager going to figure out which people are responsible for the awesome bits that the testers love, and which are responsible for the bits that just wiped every HD in the QA department?
You seem to assume a one-to-one correspondence between code and user-visible features, which could not be farther from the truth.
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
·
· Score: 1
I guess "subject matter expertise" in the first usage in that post.
A fine example of a completely stupid acronym. Simply using the word "expert" or "expertise" conveys the full meaning required. The words "subject matter" add absolutely no information. The only reason you would possibly use this acronym is either to deliberately confuse an issue or to sound smarter than you are.
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Alas, I cannot properly respond to you as I have no idea what an SME is. When you use an acronym like that, please spell out the long form the first time you use it.
The fact that you use words like "leverage" and "resourcing" as well as some weird three-letter management acronym that you apparently expect everyone to know already make me suspect that you are the clueless, incompetent manager I was discussing.
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
·
· Score: 1
If you don't know about programming, how exactly are you going to measure output? The incompetent guy is producing more code than everybody else (because he's inefficient) and checking off more bullet points than everybody else (because he works on little stuff, and his output is buggy).
When you have non-techie managers you end up with stories like this. Apple is very lucky that the managers realized how stupid they were being with Bill Atkinson, rather than firing him for insubordination or for being unproductive.
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Just my opinion, but you are dead wrong. The CEO of a large company must know the basics about that company's main products. I would not expect the CEO of Ford to be able to understand all the finicky details about Ford cars. However I would expect him to be able to open up the hood of any Ford car coming off the assembly line and point out all the relevant parts and roughly what they're responsible for.
A CEO must rely on subordinates to handle details, but the CEO himself must know enough about his products to be able to make some independent checks and decisions.
Take this back into the computer world. Apple and Microsoft are great examples of successful computer companies led by people who, while not experts, know computing pretty well. Gates may not be the best programmer in the world but he certainly knows his stuff. Jobs may not be out there writing code but he understands the technologies to a much higher degree than the hypothetical scenario you describe with Ford. Now take a contrary example, say, Hewlett Packard. HP went way downhill under the management of Carly Fiorina, someone with a great deal of "management" experience but who, as far as I know, is not technically knowledgeable.
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
This simply doesn't work with programmers.
Take a team with a couple of average programmers, one really excellent programmer, and an incompetent programmer who tries really hard all the time.
What does the manager see? He sees two average employees doing overage things. He sees the excellent programmer "goofing off" half the time, because he spends more time thinking than coding. And he sees the incompetent programmer putting in long hours and always working furiously.
What does the manager hear? He hears nothing from the excellent programmer. He hears a lot of moaning about long hours from the incompetent programmer. And he hears a lot of complaining from the average guys about how incompetent the incompetent guy is and a lot of praise for the excellent guy.
What does the manager think? Well, that depends on what he knows. If he knows programmers, then he'll recognize that the excellent guy's output is fantastic, that the incompetent guy's output per hour is extremely low and is causing havoc, and that the average guys are right to complain.
If he doesn't know programmers, he sees some guy who spends all his time goofing off, another guy who works really hard, and two average guys. The average guys complain about the hard worker and praise the lazy guy, thus showing that they are not to be trusted. Apparently they are jealous of the hard worker's success, and are trying to convince the management that they should be allowed to spend all of their time goofing off too. After enough time passes, the heaviest bonuses are awarded to the incompetent guy, and the excellent guy gets fired for goofing off.
It probably doesn't work with a lot of other jobs too, but programming is what I know and it's what we're talking about.
There's no comparison between "locking people in" by providing cool technologies not available on other platforms, and disabling an app because it competes with one of their products.
That's a nonsensical argument. Apple has explicitly allowed third parties into their device and convinced thousands of developers to invest an enormous amount of time. And now they're showing that if you make the wrong moves, that enormous investment can be completely destroyed by an arbitrary decision on Apple's part. Nothing that any of these guys have done comes anywhere close.
If you could buy apps from places other than Apple's App Store, that comparison would make sense. As it stands, Apple deliberately made themselves the only venue for legitimate iPhone software, so they are held to a much higher standard. If I could just buy this podcaster app off a web site and install it myself, this whole problem would evaporate.
An aircraft autopilot is also ready to be disengaged at any moment by the pilot if he thinks he needs to. Indeed, there has been at least one serious airliner accident caused by the pilot inadvertently disengaging the autopilot but not realizing it until it was too late.
An automated car which can drive fully independently will be a total game-changer. An automated car which requires the driver to still pay attention and be ready to take over control at all times is much less interesting.
Why does there need to be a reason other than convenience? I could run my own mail server, which would involve purchasing extra equipment, learning how to administer a mail server, paying more money to my ISP to let me run a server, and spending a non-trivial amount of time administering the whole thing. Or I could just let gmail do all the work for me, for free.
Put it this way: other than convenience, are there real reasons to trust landlords, construction workers, and architects rather than designing, building, and owning your offices yourself?
Probably one of those "wink wink nudge nudge say no more" situations, where the terms of the warranty say that it doesn't cover any existing problems, but neither the sales guy nor the customer are going to tell them that this problem was already there. Presumably in the case of more blatant abuse the warranty company would investigate and consequences would ensue.
You probably don't care this much, but here is the full story on (American) prices for the two devices:
The original iPhone initially sold for $600. About two months later the price was dropped to $400, immediately pissing off approximately 100% of the early adopters. The iPhone 3G, released a couple of months ago, sells for $200. Of course the actual hardware is worth far more than this, and Apple makes up the difference on kickbacks from AT&T.
The iPod Touch originally sold starting at $300. The new model which was just released this week dropped the price to $230.
And of course you can pay more for both devices if you want higher capacities.
From what I've seen, the prices around the world tend to be similar but inflated.
In any case, since the iPhone requires a $80 monthly subscription, its cost ends up being vastly higher. In countries where the iPhone is sold unlocked, its cost tends to be vastly higher as well (generally 3x the cost of a subsidized unit from what I've seen).
I generally agree with your opinion of the two devices, though. The Touch is a pretty crappy music player overall. On the old version there's no way to even adjust the volume without having to look at the screen. The new one adds volume buttons, but still lacks a way to pause or skip tracks without using the screen. But the Touch is a great palm-sized computing device, even horribly crippled by Apple's stupid policies for third-party apps.
It's not a question of being framed. It's a question of overzealous police and prosecutors deciding that you are guilty, then coming up with the evidence to prove it. This is a well known and common problem. It's just human nature. Police nearly always decide on who is guilty long before sufficient evidence of guilt is available. That's why our system protects suspects so greatly, because that's the only way to prevent them from being hanged by "good" people who believe that they are entirely in the right.
I can't recall the last time I experienced what you described. I've had a few items require warranty attention over the years, from Apple, HP, APC, iRobot, and others. In all those cases, they simply shipped me a replacement, and then had me send them the broken unit in the same box.
I don't doubt that what you describe happens sometimes, but it seems fairly rare. Given the enormous expense of the extended warranties compared to a separate insurance policy (such as renter's insurance or similar) or simply eating the cost of the occasional out-of-warranty replacement, it doesn't seem worthwhile even if you do occasionally have to wait for a replacement.
What are you talking about? You said that when someone comes to you with damage not covered by the manufacturer's warranty, you launch into this spiel:
"Had you bought our extended warranty, 2 screen replacements would have been covered, but the manufacturer warranty does not cover it. Worse, currently you have NO manufacturer warranty (with about half the manufacturers) for anything else, until you pay to get the screen fixed."
This, to me, is taunting. You're telling the customer that he would have been in great shape if he had purchased your extended warranty. But he didn't, so now he's screwed. Too bad for him! Maybe next time he should listen to the pushy annoying sales droid instead of ignoring him! Ha ha!
Seriously, pushing a hypothetical like this serves no purpose except to piss people off. If I came to you with a problem like this and you decided that this was the perfect opportunity to tell me how much I lost out by not buying your store's extended warranty, I would tell you to shove it where the sun don't shine and never come back.
Apparently you didn't grasp what I was talking about. You seem to think that I'm complaining about what the manufacturer's warranty covers. This is not the case. I'm complaining about the fact that you apparently think it's reasonable to use a customer's misfortune as an opportunity to tell him how stupid he was for not listening to your extended warranty spiel.
Are you seriously that much of an asshole to your customers?
"You are screwed. If you had bought our overpriced warranty then you would be saved, but you didn't, so now you lose! Ha ha!"
What a great way to lose a customer. The insanity where everybody tries to sell you stupid and overpriced extended warranties is already bad enough. But to literally taunt a customer with broken hardware because he failed to purchase the extended warranty is completely ridiculous. Do you really want these people to take their business elsewhere?
Well, if you follow the sibling thread, turns out he did tell the guy to contact the manufacturer, but he refused. So in this instance, it was a sensible thing to do.
But I agree, in general the whole business of selling warranties is kind of nuts. Store-bought extended warranties tend to be obscenely overpriced too.
(And I assume it should go without saying, but obviously my other post where I said you would have been dead wrong doing this is incorrect, since you did bring it up and he refused it.)
If you're right, then the grandparent was dead wrong. When a customer comes into your store with a problem that could be fixed through the manufacturer's warranty, the correct answer is "call XYZ Corp and they'll fix it for you", not "spend some more money on our store's warranty".
I don't understand your story. Why would you have to buy a warranty to cover a failure 5 months after purchase? Wouldn't the original manufacturer's warranty cover it?
How can you possibly reach the conclusion that I am a "leftie" based solely on the fact that I think it's invalid to compare a mainstream cable channel to a kooky web site?
I am not, and never have been, a "leftie". I object to your blanket and misplaced categorization.
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Sounds like you don't actually write software.
A new application could go many months before it's in a state to be tested by the users. By the time it's in that state, a dozen different people could all have contributed to it. How is a non-technical manager going to figure out which people are responsible for the awesome bits that the testers love, and which are responsible for the bits that just wiped every HD in the QA department?
You seem to assume a one-to-one correspondence between code and user-visible features, which could not be farther from the truth.
I guess "subject matter expertise" in the first usage in that post.
A fine example of a completely stupid acronym. Simply using the word "expert" or "expertise" conveys the full meaning required. The words "subject matter" add absolutely no information. The only reason you would possibly use this acronym is either to deliberately confuse an issue or to sound smarter than you are.
Alas, I cannot properly respond to you as I have no idea what an SME is. When you use an acronym like that, please spell out the long form the first time you use it.
The fact that you use words like "leverage" and "resourcing" as well as some weird three-letter management acronym that you apparently expect everyone to know already make me suspect that you are the clueless, incompetent manager I was discussing.
If you don't know about programming, how exactly are you going to measure output? The incompetent guy is producing more code than everybody else (because he's inefficient) and checking off more bullet points than everybody else (because he works on little stuff, and his output is buggy).
When you have non-techie managers you end up with stories like this. Apple is very lucky that the managers realized how stupid they were being with Bill Atkinson, rather than firing him for insubordination or for being unproductive.
Just my opinion, but you are dead wrong. The CEO of a large company must know the basics about that company's main products. I would not expect the CEO of Ford to be able to understand all the finicky details about Ford cars. However I would expect him to be able to open up the hood of any Ford car coming off the assembly line and point out all the relevant parts and roughly what they're responsible for.
A CEO must rely on subordinates to handle details, but the CEO himself must know enough about his products to be able to make some independent checks and decisions.
Take this back into the computer world. Apple and Microsoft are great examples of successful computer companies led by people who, while not experts, know computing pretty well. Gates may not be the best programmer in the world but he certainly knows his stuff. Jobs may not be out there writing code but he understands the technologies to a much higher degree than the hypothetical scenario you describe with Ford. Now take a contrary example, say, Hewlett Packard. HP went way downhill under the management of Carly Fiorina, someone with a great deal of "management" experience but who, as far as I know, is not technically knowledgeable.
This simply doesn't work with programmers.
Take a team with a couple of average programmers, one really excellent programmer, and an incompetent programmer who tries really hard all the time.
What does the manager see? He sees two average employees doing overage things. He sees the excellent programmer "goofing off" half the time, because he spends more time thinking than coding. And he sees the incompetent programmer putting in long hours and always working furiously.
What does the manager hear? He hears nothing from the excellent programmer. He hears a lot of moaning about long hours from the incompetent programmer. And he hears a lot of complaining from the average guys about how incompetent the incompetent guy is and a lot of praise for the excellent guy.
What does the manager think? Well, that depends on what he knows. If he knows programmers, then he'll recognize that the excellent guy's output is fantastic, that the incompetent guy's output per hour is extremely low and is causing havoc, and that the average guys are right to complain.
If he doesn't know programmers, he sees some guy who spends all his time goofing off, another guy who works really hard, and two average guys. The average guys complain about the hard worker and praise the lazy guy, thus showing that they are not to be trusted. Apparently they are jealous of the hard worker's success, and are trying to convince the management that they should be allowed to spend all of their time goofing off too. After enough time passes, the heaviest bonuses are awarded to the incompetent guy, and the excellent guy gets fired for goofing off.
It probably doesn't work with a lot of other jobs too, but programming is what I know and it's what we're talking about.
There's no comparison between "locking people in" by providing cool technologies not available on other platforms, and disabling an app because it competes with one of their products.
That's a nonsensical argument. Apple has explicitly allowed third parties into their device and convinced thousands of developers to invest an enormous amount of time. And now they're showing that if you make the wrong moves, that enormous investment can be completely destroyed by an arbitrary decision on Apple's part. Nothing that any of these guys have done comes anywhere close.
If you could buy apps from places other than Apple's App Store, that comparison would make sense. As it stands, Apple deliberately made themselves the only venue for legitimate iPhone software, so they are held to a much higher standard. If I could just buy this podcaster app off a web site and install it myself, this whole problem would evaporate.
An aircraft autopilot is also ready to be disengaged at any moment by the pilot if he thinks he needs to. Indeed, there has been at least one serious airliner accident caused by the pilot inadvertently disengaging the autopilot but not realizing it until it was too late.
An automated car which can drive fully independently will be a total game-changer. An automated car which requires the driver to still pay attention and be ready to take over control at all times is much less interesting.
The fact that you'd be forced to purchase a new copy rather than a used copy is a feature, not a bug.
If you just pull numbers out of thin air with no grounding in reality, you can prove anything!
Why does there need to be a reason other than convenience? I could run my own mail server, which would involve purchasing extra equipment, learning how to administer a mail server, paying more money to my ISP to let me run a server, and spending a non-trivial amount of time administering the whole thing. Or I could just let gmail do all the work for me, for free.
Put it this way: other than convenience, are there real reasons to trust landlords, construction workers, and architects rather than designing, building, and owning your offices yourself?
Probably one of those "wink wink nudge nudge say no more" situations, where the terms of the warranty say that it doesn't cover any existing problems, but neither the sales guy nor the customer are going to tell them that this problem was already there. Presumably in the case of more blatant abuse the warranty company would investigate and consequences would ensue.
You probably don't care this much, but here is the full story on (American) prices for the two devices:
The original iPhone initially sold for $600. About two months later the price was dropped to $400, immediately pissing off approximately 100% of the early adopters. The iPhone 3G, released a couple of months ago, sells for $200. Of course the actual hardware is worth far more than this, and Apple makes up the difference on kickbacks from AT&T.
The iPod Touch originally sold starting at $300. The new model which was just released this week dropped the price to $230.
And of course you can pay more for both devices if you want higher capacities.
From what I've seen, the prices around the world tend to be similar but inflated.
In any case, since the iPhone requires a $80 monthly subscription, its cost ends up being vastly higher. In countries where the iPhone is sold unlocked, its cost tends to be vastly higher as well (generally 3x the cost of a subsidized unit from what I've seen).
I generally agree with your opinion of the two devices, though. The Touch is a pretty crappy music player overall. On the old version there's no way to even adjust the volume without having to look at the screen. The new one adds volume buttons, but still lacks a way to pause or skip tracks without using the screen. But the Touch is a great palm-sized computing device, even horribly crippled by Apple's stupid policies for third-party apps.
It's not a question of being framed. It's a question of overzealous police and prosecutors deciding that you are guilty, then coming up with the evidence to prove it. This is a well known and common problem. It's just human nature. Police nearly always decide on who is guilty long before sufficient evidence of guilt is available. That's why our system protects suspects so greatly, because that's the only way to prevent them from being hanged by "good" people who believe that they are entirely in the right.
Like what items?
I can't recall the last time I experienced what you described. I've had a few items require warranty attention over the years, from Apple, HP, APC, iRobot, and others. In all those cases, they simply shipped me a replacement, and then had me send them the broken unit in the same box.
I don't doubt that what you describe happens sometimes, but it seems fairly rare. Given the enormous expense of the extended warranties compared to a separate insurance policy (such as renter's insurance or similar) or simply eating the cost of the occasional out-of-warranty replacement, it doesn't seem worthwhile even if you do occasionally have to wait for a replacement.
What are you talking about? You said that when someone comes to you with damage not covered by the manufacturer's warranty, you launch into this spiel:
"Had you bought our extended warranty, 2 screen replacements would have been covered, but the manufacturer warranty does not cover it. Worse, currently you have NO manufacturer warranty (with about half the manufacturers) for anything else, until you pay to get the screen fixed."
This, to me, is taunting. You're telling the customer that he would have been in great shape if he had purchased your extended warranty. But he didn't, so now he's screwed. Too bad for him! Maybe next time he should listen to the pushy annoying sales droid instead of ignoring him! Ha ha!
Seriously, pushing a hypothetical like this serves no purpose except to piss people off. If I came to you with a problem like this and you decided that this was the perfect opportunity to tell me how much I lost out by not buying your store's extended warranty, I would tell you to shove it where the sun don't shine and never come back.
Apparently you didn't grasp what I was talking about. You seem to think that I'm complaining about what the manufacturer's warranty covers. This is not the case. I'm complaining about the fact that you apparently think it's reasonable to use a customer's misfortune as an opportunity to tell him how stupid he was for not listening to your extended warranty spiel.
Are you seriously that much of an asshole to your customers?
"You are screwed. If you had bought our overpriced warranty then you would be saved, but you didn't, so now you lose! Ha ha!"
What a great way to lose a customer. The insanity where everybody tries to sell you stupid and overpriced extended warranties is already bad enough. But to literally taunt a customer with broken hardware because he failed to purchase the extended warranty is completely ridiculous. Do you really want these people to take their business elsewhere?
Well, if you follow the sibling thread, turns out he did tell the guy to contact the manufacturer, but he refused. So in this instance, it was a sensible thing to do.
But I agree, in general the whole business of selling warranties is kind of nuts. Store-bought extended warranties tend to be obscenely overpriced too.
Makes sense, thanks for the explanation.
(And I assume it should go without saying, but obviously my other post where I said you would have been dead wrong doing this is incorrect, since you did bring it up and he refused it.)
If you're right, then the grandparent was dead wrong. When a customer comes into your store with a problem that could be fixed through the manufacturer's warranty, the correct answer is "call XYZ Corp and they'll fix it for you", not "spend some more money on our store's warranty".
I don't understand your story. Why would you have to buy a warranty to cover a failure 5 months after purchase? Wouldn't the original manufacturer's warranty cover it?
How can you possibly reach the conclusion that I am a "leftie" based solely on the fact that I think it's invalid to compare a mainstream cable channel to a kooky web site?
I am not, and never have been, a "leftie". I object to your blanket and misplaced categorization.
Honestly I'd rather have Linux keep its current market share than win by deceptive marketing.