> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rich Kulawiec
> Sent: Monday, November 02, 1998 7:08 AM
> "Cost", by the way, includes a lot more than dollars and cents.
Actually it doesn't, as dollars are the way that we keep score.
Possibly what you're struggling to articulate is that some costs
translate very indirectly into money. For example, I believe
that the downsizing fad was largely a "cashing in" of the
corporate assets of employee loyalty and knowledge for stock
price and profit. Losing that loyalty won't show up on the
corporate books as dollars for some time, and won't appear
explicitly, but it is a dollar cost.
> ... I'd rather leave the
> field entirely and flip burgers at McDonalds than be the kind
> of useless leech that 99% of managers et.al. represent.
I'm relieved to know that you have something to fall back on.
Before you ask: no, I don't want fries with that.
> ... cars depreciate. That puts them in the "not an investment",
> or if your prefer "not a good investment" class.
Having a car saves you taxi, train, and bus fares, time spent
waiting for mass transit and rides from friends, delivery costs
for things you can't carry on the subway, and a huge number of
other things. It allows you to take a job or contract at places
that you couldn't reach otherwise and to get to an unexpected
client meeting or work into the night on site.
> ... Writing and deploying (software) is a darn good idea: ...
> But it is *not* an investment.
You don't understand what the word "investment" means and
you're criticizing managers and bean-counters?
> I'm talking about a software/systems methodology, and that has nothing
> to do with running a company.
Wow.
> ... I have far more respect for whoever cleans the toilets at
> IBM/etc. headquarters -- who is *at least* making an honest
> living through hard work -- than I do for the CEO.
I got to know Tom Watson Jr., then CEO of IBM, pretty well when I
was at Brown. I've also know several Nobel Prize winners (Leon
Cooper (of BCS) was my undergraduate advisor), rocket scientists,
and many of the best programmers, system designers, and hackers
of the century. Watson was smarter and worked harder than any of
them.
Bob Munck
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