From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Feb 25 18:16:42 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4DB9316A4CE for ; Fri, 25 Feb 2005 18:16:42 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com (mail.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.192.90]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CEE4B43D5D for ; Fri, 25 Feb 2005 18:16:41 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) Received: from tedwin2k (nat-rtr.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com [65.75.197.130]) j1PIGjb02233 for ; Fri, 25 Feb 2005 10:16:45 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tedm@toybox.placo.com) From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" To: Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 10:16:43 -0800 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <1907334115.20050225132200@wanadoo.fr> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1478 Importance: Normal Subject: RE: Is Yahoo! moving from FreeBSD? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 18:16:42 -0000 owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org wrote: > Ted Mittelstaedt writes: > >> If you put anything other than Microsoft Office in front of those >> people they will spend endless hours complaining about how much >> better a job they can do (as if they are capabable of doing anything >> better than their normal half-assed job of anything) if they have >> Microsoft office, because they know that better ... > > They're right. Why train them on something different when they > already know how to use Office? It makes no economic sense. > >> ... they are too lazy to learn something different ... > > It's not cost-effective to train them on anything different. They > already know Office, so put Office in front of them. It's cheaper to > buy them a copy of Office than it is to train them on something else, > even if the something-else is free. Your missing the point. It's far more cost-effective for a business to not hire a bunch of whiners in the first place. I expect the above behavior out of the chewinggummy girl I hire to sit at the reception desk for $7 an hour and present a set of nice boobs to the customers when they walk in the door. If I can keep her off the phone to her boyfriend all day long I consider myself lucky, if I can actually get some real work out of her other than answering the phone and serving as eye candy, I'm in seventh heaven. But I don't expect this kind of whining from someone I hire at $30K a year to actually do some real clerical work that requires some responsibility, and I am not going to stand for it for the $60K and above grown up adult that I hire for a managerial or ops position or some such. Unfortunately, there's still too many upper managers in business today who came of age before the computer became integrated into business, and chose to be lazy and not learn how to use them, and as a result today cannot themselves operate the things, so it is not possible for them to hold their employees to any kind of standard in this area. All throughout our businesses careers, we will be faced with this problem of having to unlearn the old way of doing things and learn new, better ways. Everyone that works in a job faces this. Unfortunately, many people choose to refuse to unlearn old ways, and a larger percentage of them get like this when they have been doing the old way for a long time. It isn't impossible. I've seen many older managers very skilled in applying computer technology to their jobs, and this is a joy to behold as you get a meld of experience in the industry to the technology that produces some amazing things. I would not want to compete in any way with these folks! Unfortunately, call me cynical or what, but these managers appear to be in the minority. Ted