Sorry, I worked for a government contractor. It may not be mandated, but we got regularly inspected for our "balance" by the government, and if we were way off it effected our ability to bid future contracts. When hiring, the HR dept would come to me and mention that they were concerned about the department "balance" and how the next hire would effect that. The implication is obvious, though no one would dare say it directly because you couldn't. They were just as worried about reverse descrimination litigation.
Potential loss of future business is practically blackmailing some businesses into removing whole classes of potential workers from each job. Been there, seen it.
One thing I haven't seen among all the arguments is the cost of expensing all this. That is to say, the cost of moving the bill through the accounts payable department, bank, whatever approval chain has to approve the expenses, etc. While this number varies greatly, the lowest I have seen is about $25 (US) per expense report, and the figures go much higher (upwards of $45)depending on how well the company is organized, how well the process is automated, etc. So, for every $50 DSL bill, it actually costs $75-$95 or more due to the costs associated.
My company has a pretty progressive policy, but we have a fairly mobile workforce. Broadband to the home is considered an employee expense unless the user is home-based or has a Senior VP willing to back them (which only happens if it effect the company's bottom line). Mobile services get thrown in one big pot, and you can expense up to a specific dollar amount depending on job role (Sales gets more than Facilities, for example). So your Blackberry, cell phone, wireless internet (Wi-Fi or cellular), and any other mobile cost is up to you on how it is spent. Some folks have it all and pay the extra, some just a cell phone. And that way the expense is done once a month, and the cost to the company in overhead is one hit instead of three or four. Figure our cost is about $30 a report, 2 avoided each month, 3000 employees filing, and you are talking $180,000 savings a month. Real money even in a large company.
All that said, if the company is telling you just to buck-up and take it, time to look around. Your management lacks vision and is groping around. I'm all for well thought out plans, I helped put the one above together. Even through it in the long run cost me a few bucks a month it saved the company thousands of real dollars without pissing everyone off.
-G
"We love to buy books, because we are buying the belief we have time to read them" - Warren Zevon
I used to service PC's in a hospital, and they were a mess. Systems in the sterile areas, the compromised immunity area especially, you had to bag and remove before you could open them up. Dust carries some dangerous stuff, and in the compromised immunity wing you couldn't even move a ceiling tile or change a light fixture without removing the patent. The first time a nurse saw the inside of a PC from that ward, she remarked "That pretty much could have killed the patient who shared the room with the computer".
At a different hospital I was at for a short time, no such policies for removing systems exist. Scary.
My team was working in part of a building that was still a data center for some supercomputers. They ran out of space, and built a cube farm on the raised floor, walled off from the systems. Besides the noise, they couldn't get the aircon balance right, so they gave up. Four words
Snow Parka's in July.
The guards thought it funny to see the day shift come in from 100 degree weather with a ski parka over one arm. Some days you could literally see your breath in the middle of the afternoon, and it would be T-shirt weather outside.
The James Webb Space Telescope is really not a replacement for Hubble. JWST is primarily an IR telescope, and HST is a visible light and UV telescope. Different but complimentary missions. Even if JWST goes up, the loss of HST prematurely will hurt science.
The Europeans have yet to put a person in space themselves. Japan's having a bad enough time getting their rockets to work. Which really leave Russia. Hence my earliers comment, which really should be in the form of a questions. Should we be relying on Russian space vehicles to get our people into space? I'm just not sure I'm comfortable giving up the capability of getting to ISS without someone elses permission.
Russia is still politically volitile, and the launch site is not even in Russia and is subject to changes in the political wind in that country too. Not having a way around that leaves us at risk of being diplomatically stalled and eventually losing dominance in space that we have to take back in the future.
IF we retire the shuttle fleet by 2010 and bring the new vehicle on by 2014, what exactly do we do for the grounded four year? Don't see any other option offered, and hitching a ride with the Russians only goes so far.
Pepsi Products served: Mug Rootbeer, no caffeine Coke Products served: Barqs (sp?), caffeine (that is where the bite comes from). 7-Up products: varies, often A&W, but not always. No way to tell unless you can see the tap. Actually saw one marked RR Rootbeer, with train track symbols on it.
Some did, and a few generators failed. We lost our OC-3 from New York to London because of a generator that failed about 4 hours after the blackout started.
A few placed a Geek could find intersting sites. I make no expressed warranty other than I've been there and can recommend them.
National Cryptologic Museum - http://www.nsa.gov/museum/ - Outside Washington DC - The history is skewed, as you would expect from any government, but exhibits are cool
Most of the Major NASA centers have some sort of visitors center, a few: Goddard - http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/vc/museum.html - Outside Washington DC Jet Propulsion Lab - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ - Near Los Angeles Ames Research Center - http://www.arc.nasa.gov/ - Near San Jose, CA Kennedy - http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/ (expecially if you can time it around a launch) - Florida, of course
Some West coast Observatories Lick Observatory - http://www.ucolick.org/ - Near San Jose, CA Griffith Observatory - http://www.griffithobs.org/ - In the Los Angele Area
With a cheap mike and headphones, the computer could easily be used to record and playback speech. Sort of similar to the old language labs schools had with tape decks and study carrels that you practiced speech in.
Ever heard yourself talk? Sounds different when played back, and that can be a useful tool when teaching someone proper pronunciation.
There have been stories about how some part or the entire Internet is running out of IP address space since at least 1993. And using China as an example is silly. Most if not all the country is behind a huge "firewall" capable of running NAT services. They could run V6 internally, gateway it, and we would never know the difference.
Once again ZD reports a nothing issue as news.
From my days in Sales
on
LCD Price Fixing?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I ran into this same question when I was made responsible for parts ordering for my company. I was told at the time by the manufacturer rep (Toshiba, I think) that some sort of tariff was responsible. LCD's connected to computers were not charged the tariff, LCD's separate were charged. This was the reason given to us why LCD's ordered for broken laptops costs as much as a new one.
This was 1995, and the answer comes from a sales guy, so YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, I worked for a government contractor. It may not be mandated, but we got regularly inspected for our "balance" by the government, and if we were way off it effected our ability to bid future contracts. When hiring, the HR dept would come to me and mention that they were concerned about the department "balance" and how the next hire would effect that. The implication is obvious, though no one would dare say it directly because you couldn't. They were just as worried about reverse descrimination litigation.
Potential loss of future business is practically blackmailing some businesses into removing whole classes of potential workers from each job. Been there, seen it.
One thing I haven't seen among all the arguments is the cost of expensing all this. That is to say, the cost of moving the bill through the accounts payable department, bank, whatever approval chain has to approve the expenses, etc. While this number varies greatly, the lowest I have seen is about $25 (US) per expense report, and the figures go much higher (upwards of $45)depending on how well the company is organized, how well the process is automated, etc. So, for every $50 DSL bill, it actually costs $75-$95 or more due to the costs associated.
My company has a pretty progressive policy, but we have a fairly mobile workforce. Broadband to the home is considered an employee expense unless the user is home-based or has a Senior VP willing to back them (which only happens if it effect the company's bottom line). Mobile services get thrown in one big pot, and you can expense up to a specific dollar amount depending on job role (Sales gets more than Facilities, for example). So your Blackberry, cell phone, wireless internet (Wi-Fi or cellular), and any other mobile cost is up to you on how it is spent. Some folks have it all and pay the extra, some just a cell phone. And that way the expense is done once a month, and the cost to the company in overhead is one hit instead of three or four. Figure our cost is about $30 a report, 2 avoided each month, 3000 employees filing, and you are talking $180,000 savings a month. Real money even in a large company.
All that said, if the company is telling you just to buck-up and take it, time to look around. Your management lacks vision and is groping around. I'm all for well thought out plans, I helped put the one above together. Even through it in the long run cost me a few bucks a month it saved the company thousands of real dollars without pissing everyone off.
-G
"We love to buy books, because we are buying the belief we have time to read them"
- Warren Zevon
I used to service PC's in a hospital, and they were a mess. Systems in the sterile areas, the compromised immunity area especially, you had to bag and remove before you could open them up. Dust carries some dangerous stuff, and in the compromised immunity wing you couldn't even move a ceiling tile or change a light fixture without removing the patent. The first time a nurse saw the inside of a PC from that ward, she remarked "That pretty much could have killed the patient who shared the room with the computer".
At a different hospital I was at for a short time, no such policies for removing systems exist. Scary.
My team was working in part of a building that was still a data center for some supercomputers. They ran out of space, and built a cube farm on the raised floor, walled off from the systems. Besides the noise, they couldn't get the aircon balance right, so they gave up. Four words
Snow Parka's in July.
The guards thought it funny to see the day shift come in from 100 degree weather with a ski parka over one arm. Some days you could literally see your breath in the middle of the afternoon, and it would be T-shirt weather outside.
The James Webb Space Telescope is really not a replacement for Hubble. JWST is primarily an IR telescope, and HST is a visible light and UV telescope. Different but complimentary missions. Even if JWST goes up, the loss of HST prematurely will hurt science.
The Europeans have yet to put a person in space themselves. Japan's having a bad enough time getting their rockets to work. Which really leave Russia. Hence my earliers comment, which really should be in the form of a questions. Should we be relying on Russian space vehicles to get our people into space? I'm just not sure I'm comfortable giving up the capability of getting to ISS without someone elses permission.
Russia is still politically volitile, and the launch site is not even in Russia and is subject to changes in the political wind in that country too. Not having a way around that leaves us at risk of being diplomatically stalled and eventually losing dominance in space that we have to take back in the future.
IF we retire the shuttle fleet by 2010 and bring the new vehicle on by 2014, what exactly do we do for the grounded four year? Don't see any other option offered, and hitching a ride with the Russians only goes so far.
General Rule of Thumb.
Pepsi Products served: Mug Rootbeer, no caffeine
Coke Products served: Barqs (sp?), caffeine (that is where the bite comes from).
7-Up products: varies, often A&W, but not always. No way to tell unless you can see the tap. Actually saw one marked RR Rootbeer, with train track symbols on it.
Some did, and a few generators failed. We lost our OC-3 from New York to London because of a generator that failed about 4 hours after the blackout started.
A few placed a Geek could find intersting sites. I make no expressed warranty other than I've been there and can recommend them.
National Cryptologic Museum - http://www.nsa.gov/museum/ - Outside Washington DC
- The history is skewed, as you would expect from any government, but exhibits are cool
Most of the Major NASA centers have some sort of visitors center, a few:
Goddard - http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/vc/museum.html - Outside Washington DC
Jet Propulsion Lab - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ - Near Los Angeles
Ames Research Center - http://www.arc.nasa.gov/ - Near San Jose, CA
Kennedy - http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/ (expecially if you can time it around a launch) - Florida, of course
Some West coast Observatories
Lick Observatory - http://www.ucolick.org/ - Near San Jose, CA
Griffith Observatory - http://www.griffithobs.org/ - In the Los Angele Area
With a cheap mike and headphones, the computer could easily be used to record and playback speech. Sort of similar to the old language labs schools had with tape decks and study carrels that you practiced speech in.
Ever heard yourself talk? Sounds different when played back, and that can be a useful tool when teaching someone proper pronunciation.
There have been stories about how some part or the entire Internet is running out of IP address space since at least 1993. And using China as an example is silly. Most if not all the country is behind a huge "firewall" capable of running NAT services. They could run V6 internally, gateway it, and we would never know the difference.
Once again ZD reports a nothing issue as news.
I ran into this same question when I was made responsible for parts ordering for my company. I was told at the time by the manufacturer rep (Toshiba, I think) that some sort of tariff was responsible. LCD's connected to computers were not charged the tariff, LCD's separate were charged. This was the reason given to us why LCD's ordered for broken laptops costs as much as a new one.
This was 1995, and the answer comes from a sales guy, so YMMV.