Talking to a friend of mine, in a steady but boring IT admin job, been talking about bailing for years.
Along side my day job in IT, I have a side job, running my own business in IT.
I do the day job because the business doesn’t get enough custom.
The business is thoroughly professional, competent and economical with stunning service… its job is to convert gasoline into motive power.
The day job is total wank, a knackered old v8 intermittently firing on each cylinder, but who cares as its job is to convert gasoline into noise…
The thing my friend doesn’t get, the thing many hopeful small business owners don’t get, the thing many men don’t get, is this….
THAT IS THE WAY PEOPLE WANT IT.
If there is ANY GAP WHATSOEVER in between the engineer and the end user, then whoever is in that gap, and it can be a layer cake 27 levels deep, is not interested in either the engineer or the end user, only in their own slice.
Let me tell you something about Cisco kit, it basically *is* the internet, a vast product range with an equally vast software and licensing range, basically quite small boxes, and you look at some of the small business stuff and it is a small box that retails for 10k, and the prices go on up from there.
But, with Cisco stuff you need three things;
- The Cisco box itself, e.g. the hardware
- The correct version of the IOS for both the box and the job in question
- The correct configuration file for the box, IOS and job in question.
It is as simple as that, three things, have them all on site when you turn up and the job is a piece of piss, even better, two of those things can be delivered electronically as an email attachment.
(OK, to be specific the IOS cannot be corrupt, and the config cannot contain any errors, both these are routine in real life)
You would think, that as the bottom layer in the cake the on-site guy like me would not have to ask those three questions about EVERY SINGLE FUCKING JOB you go to, you would think all the layers previous to me would get those three simple ducks in a row, you would think that BETWEEN all those layers it would be impossible for the job to progress down to me without those ducks in a row.
But no, since NO-ONE in those layers is concerned in any way with either the engineer or end user, only their own slice, I almost NEVER get all three handed on a plate to me, and if I do, items 2 or 3 are probably incorrect.
This is a TOUGH lesson to learn if you are an idealist, or naive, or young, or a man, but you better fucking learn it or your ass gets hung out to dry.
The lesson is nobody else gives a fuck, so you better not either, not beyond anything except covering your own ass, which means the ONLY fucking part of your job that matters is getting the paperwork straight, signed and filed.
You cannot correct this without removing every single layer that stands between the end user and the engineer, in effect, this means removing business/corporate from the playing-field, it ain’t gonna happen, it’s like asking for a hot dog minus the onions and sauce and bread, it’s a fucking sausage, not a hot dog.
It’s why the NAWALT thing is bullshit.
Take away all those components that make wimminz like that and what you have left is a drooling retard in adult nappies.
Those of you thinking hard times will cure this are equally delusional, hard times will decimate the layers in the cake between the end user and the engineer, but there are still going to be layers in the cake.
I’m reminded of the (true) clip in the film where Barnes-Wallis went to the War Department to ask for the loan of a Wellington bomber to run some prototype tests on the dam-buster bomb.
The clerk asks him why the fuck he thinks the war department will lend him a valuable Wellington bomber to play with
“Perhaps, because I designed them (Wellington bombers)” says BW
So even in the darkest days of war there were layers of cake getting in the way, and they were the most incompetent and parasitic layers, all the semi useful ones got shit-canned.
Those of you trying to survive, or rebuild after an FRA etc, better get this shit straight and cold before you even think about going into business for yourself.
Sure, the local firms that endure a series of fuck-ups may well call you in to fix X at zero notice, and then they will go straight back to the layer cake, you will NEVER get your way in and carve your own niche, not while there are any layers there.
