Re: Horror stories (was New Mach

[MacWheel99@xxxxxxx]

> Please, daddy, finish the story...  (the line I get most nights)
>  
>  Dan Bale

Another alternative would be for me to SNAIL MAIL you some notes from the 
seminar I used to give, which includes some stories I do not repeat any more 
... risk of getting into trouble is too great.  Of course not all my stories 
are in those notes.

The academic deal was ... to save money they dropped spending on preventative 
maintenance.  Well the Engineering School had a mega buck expensive plotter 
that some group of successful graduates had donated to the institution but it 
needed tech support quite regularly, so 2 weeks after management decision to 
drop PM contract that was costing them $50.00 or so a month, they had this 
non-usable equipment taking up space & unable to get the $50.00 back onto the 
budget.

So they held an auction & the winning bid was like 1 cent on the dollar of 
what it was worth & the winner could easily see the value in paying for a 
maintenance contract.

The same University did a 10% cut across the board on expenses, which led to 
the hours of the Library cut by more than half, losing most of the weekend & 
late hours.  This is because the late hours & weekends were managed by 
student volunteers who got a pittance credit against their tuitiion in return 
for volunteer work, and when the Library budget was cut 10%, the Library 
management took it out of the volunteer support & kept all the regular staff, 
who worked 9-5.

A variation on the academic deal was a major high school had a break in over 
the weekend & something like 20 PCs walked out.  Apparently in the academic 
world they have a hard time getting budget for all the pieces of a package 
that we take for granted in the business world.  They could get money to buy 
computers after long struggles to build up some department, they just could 
not get the board of education to pay premiums on insurance.

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
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