> also, in my experience, managers (pointy-head or not) are rarely overly > caught up by the technical details. they just want such-and-such a problem > to go away. > they usually don't really care how you do it, especially if it works well > and they never ever have to cut short a trip to the golf course because of it.
I don't share your luck and I think few do, although this forum may be more fortunate in that respect. I am heading to Cape Town tomorrow morning to install MS Exchange in what will probably still be a NetBSD shop for a year or so. Me, when I have no idea what Exchange actually look like! This is what comes of bucking the trend successfully. IT management there believe it will cost them less to entrust the installation to me than to bring in an MCSE (by whatever the current label may be) that will install herself permanently behind the Exchange keyboard at a formidable monthly salary. What will in fact happen, sadly, is that I'll be blamed for all the things that will go wrong with MS Exchange, irrespective of the real responsibility, more things will go wrong than usual because I'll insist in front-ending Exchange with the existing Sendmail installation, modified in haste to deliver to Exchange instead of the local mailboxes. All sorts of extremely fancy features of Exchange will be used and the reliability of the existing system will soon will be forgotten. My shoulders aren't wide enough to carry that load, but I can't afford to charge them what would be market related fees for my experience because it is not what they and their colleagues perceive to be the mainstream, so I'll have to sneak away from under their system very slowly and very surreptitiously as soon as I can find an alternative position. They will not, of course, discuss this, as they do not want to be encumbered with the necessary and unpleasant reality. Sigh! ++L PS: If you have a broad-spectrum position at Vitanuova that involves vision rather than productivity, I'm your man :-)
