There once was a construction company that build homes and other buildings. They hired skilled craftsmen (and women, but we're calling them all craftsmen) to do the work. These people had been told that they'd be building homes built on the latest designs, using the best materials, in order to build peoples dream homes for a reasonable price.
The craftsmen were told that the company would provide all the tools in order to ensure a consistent quality. The workers requested pneumatic nail guns since that allow them to go as quickly as possible. The request went to the hardware store were the clerk insisted most of their sales were for tac hammers. Clearly tac hammers are all that are required, so those were purchased. The craftsmen protested - this would take them 10x as long and would cause much frustration. Craftsmen, like all skilled labour, like to feel that they are working at the best of their ability with the appropriate tools. A tac hammer is clearly not a valid replacement for an air hammer.
Ah, but the management of the company said that the tac hammers make perfect sense. If their paid more money for the faster tools, it would be out of the company budget. This would save time, and therefore money, but only what was billed to the customers. So it wasn't in the companies best interest to ensure the craftsmen have the proper tools.
The craftsmen promised that they would pay for their own tools if they were allowed to bring them into work. Alas the company's management stated that would be against policy. I mean, if the craftsmen brought in their own tools, how would that look? People would start to think that the company wasn't able to provide the proper resources to do the job.
So the company decided to outsource their craftsmen to third-party crafty people at a lower cost, who bring their own tools with them (due to favorable tax policies). With the productivity boon that ensued, the craftsmen were laid off. The End.
ReplyDeleteMoral of the story is just go buy the JIRA starter edition for $10.00 (or whatever software you're looking at), don't tell anyone, and attribute your success to your super-human abilities.
Ah, the software tools aren't the problem. It's the desktops. I keep on watching the tablets that get released and the specs are getting really close to what we have.
ReplyDeleteLast week a new contractor joined and they gave him a single core pentium 4 with 1 GB of ram. It was a mistake, but not much of one.
I'm just bitching. I was frustrated that it took me close to an hour yesterday to start the machine and run a junit test case. And don't get me started about the new virus (scanner) that provides a 10 second lag so it's like you're on a bad vnc session over dialup. The weekly scan usually takes 27-30 hours on my machine. :-(
This isn't just imagined improvements either - a guy worked from home one day and ran his test suite on his home desktop. Took 45 seconds. On the work machine - close to 6 minutes.
I feel my life bleeding away watching progress bars stuck at 37%. :-(
(5 minutes x {# builds per day})/60 x 7.5 x daily per diem = business case for new desktop
ReplyDeleteAt least it's measurable...justifying a second monitor can be more tricky, but it's doable in terms of time spent maximizing/minimizing/moving windows around.
That's one good point - dual monitors are standard.
ReplyDeleteMoney for new tools comes from the division, but the savings (and cost of time lost) only effects the clients being billed - which actually mean less money coming in. Different buckets means the person who would incur the costs of new machines has zero motivation, business case or not, to approve new machine.
I'm pulling my hair out about it. I don't see any possible progress through official channels in the short term.
At the end of the day I'd like to feel productive rather than feeling like my life has bled away watching progress bars stuck at 37%.