[time-nuts] Off topic (was - Re: Serial to Excel utility

Thomas A Frank ka2cdk at cox.net
Mon Nov 7 23:48:13 UTC 2011


On Nov 7, 2011, at 11:30 AM, Jim Lux wrote:

> On 11/7/11 7:21 AM, paul swed wrote:
>> Wow for the rich and famous I see. $259 is about what a whole laptop costs.
>> :-)
>> 
> Yes, but then you still need to write the software for that laptop.
> 
> 
> Think of it this way.. you're a non-software-developer kind of person but highly paid.. $100k/yr kind of senior engineer/scientist.
> 
> You need a way to interface widget X to your computer to get data into Excel.
> You can pick up the phone and order one of these widgets in 15 minutes, then, hopefully, spend a half hour or so after it arrives, and your problem is solved.
> 
> Or, you can spend a day thrashing with some sort of Excel macros, or finding someone to do some coding, etc.
> 
> 
> $100k/hr -> about $1000/day..   If the $250 widget and an hour meets the need, it's a win.
> 
> Even if you're a coding wizard and can knock this out in your sleep, it might still be worthwhile.. if you have limited hours to do things, do the things that only YOU can do, and let someone else do the rest. (this is an argument I have with senior microwave engineers wanting to do their own sysadmin work.. we've got dozens of people who can do sysadmin work, we have very few who can design 94GHz circuits.. 



A word of advice - if your senior microwave engineers want to do their own sysadmin work, it is because the people you have doing that work are not doing it to the satisfaction of the microwave engineers.  Most likely, they are in fact making life difficult for the microwave engineers, and interfering with them getting their actual work done.

Fix that problem, and you won't have to worry about highly paid senior engineers doing sysadmin work.

It is a rare company indeed where the sysadmins are told that they are to do what the engineers request, without fighting, whining, or being passive aggressive about it.  Those are the sorts of companies one wants to work for.

Tom Frank, KA2CDK (who most certainly does NOT work for one of those companies)





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