By the way, how does the 19 year old fit into this? Is he the sugardaddy or just some random dude?
The 19 year-old has been with the company from the start. He originally worked part-time, as he was a high school student, but moved to fulltime after graduation. He's really only a service technician (and a bad one at that, given that almost all of our clients have requested he not do the onsite repairs), but has been thrust into our sales position as that person was fired this past July. So, the website in question was mainly created by the 19 year-old, which is why I sent him the files I wrote.
As far as my situation goes, I've tried calling my boss several times at both the number he gave me (I'm assuming it's his home phone number) and our normal Vonage business number. No answer. Kind of annoying, as he specifically said to call him at 1:00 to talk about something important.
Him and the 19 year old took the money and flew to Thailand. He left the business (and debt) in your name. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue your credit history?
By the way, how does the 19 year old fit into this? Is he the sugardaddy or just some random dude?
The 19 year-old has been with the company from the start. He originally worked part-time, as he was a high school student, but moved to fulltime after graduation. He's really only a service technician (and a bad one at that, given that almost all of our clients have requested he not do the onsite repairs), but has been thrust into our sales position as that person was fired this past July. So, the website in question was mainly created by the 19 year-old, which is why I sent him the files I wrote.
As far as my situation goes, I've tried calling my boss several times at both the number he gave me (I'm assuming it's his home phone number) and our normal Vonage business number. No answer. Kind of annoying, as he specifically said to call him at 1:00 to talk about something important.
Him and the 19 year old took the money and flew to Thailand. He left the business (and debt) in your name. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue your credit history?
Just get me a blowtorch and a pair of pliars.
and
Sweet. I'll be back in a few days.
Nightslyr on
PSN/XBL/Nintendo/Origin/Steam: Nightslyr 3DS: 1607-1682-2948 Switch: SW-3515-0057-3813 FF XIV: Q'vehn Tia
Well, it's official: the company has closed its doors for good.
Obviously, this is hardly a shock as they just moved into my boss' basement, but even after the move things still went worse. Clients were a bit creeped out about going to his home, and no money at all was coming in.
My boss is so embarrassed he's planning on moving down to Florida in the upcoming months to get away from virtually everyone that saw him fail.
Me? I get to spend my time actually honing my skills so I can get a real job instead of working on small, crappy projects. I need to start making quality, perhaps even small enterprise-level scripts.
Nightslyr on
PSN/XBL/Nintendo/Origin/Steam: Nightslyr 3DS: 1607-1682-2948 Switch: SW-3515-0057-3813 FF XIV: Q'vehn Tia
On the drive home, she said, "I didn't really want to do that. I don't like causing trouble. Sometimes, you just gotta do it, though."
My point? I dunno if I have one. Just that I wish employees at retail would have the backbone sometimes to tell pushy customers, "Please wait a minute while I finish up here, then I will be ready to give you my full attention." It could have saved everyone a lot of time. My mom wouldn't have blown her top, and we coulda gone home half an hour earlier, and that particular Best Buy would still get our business.
One October when I was really young, my family drove an rented RV across America. We'd been having issues with the electrics for the lights. At one point, we got pulled over by a motorcycle cop because one of the tail lights was out and so we had to pull in at the nearest garage to get it repaired. Now, naturally, this was a rental so my dad didn't expect to be liable for repairs that he hadn't explicitly instigated. So we're in this proper backwater garage, I don't recall which state, but it was pretty hot and basically in the middle of nowhere and my dad is on the phone to the rental company doing his polite Englishman thing asking them if they wouldn't mind awfully paying the garage to do the repairs and not really getting anywhere for hours. Eventually, he hangs up the phone and the mechanic/owner, probably in his sixties, leathery skin, stubbly face, grease up to his elbows, says to him 'Henry, you've got to learn to be more of an asshole.'
It's sound advice. Sometimes people will just ignore you even if you're right, so you have to stop being polite and patient and be more of an asshole. It's not pleasant and you probably won't enjoy doing it, but sometimes people leave you with no choice but to go ballistic.
Well, it's official: the company has closed its doors for good.
Obviously, this is hardly a shock as they just moved into my boss' basement, but even after the move things still went worse. Clients were a bit creeped out about going to his home, and no money at all was coming in.
My boss is so embarrassed he's planning on moving down to Florida in the upcoming months to get away from virtually everyone that saw him fail.
Me? I get to spend my time actually honing my skills so I can get a real job instead of working on small, crappy projects. I need to start making quality, perhaps even small enterprise-level scripts.
Hopefully you got some sort of severance package...
Tw4win on
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SirUltimosDon't talk, Rusty. Just paint.Registered Userregular
I personally own a set of Shun knives and... Damn.
Never going back.
Until they invent light saber kitchen knives, it's Japanese steel for me.
I was just looking at their site, and WOW. Nice.
Do they use Shun knives in Kitchen Stadium? I would guess so since the announcer is doing the advertisements, but you never know..
My next purchase is going to be some new steak knives, anyone got a lead on some decent ones? I'm not looking to spend a fortune, but I'd like something nicer than the set of supposedly stainless steel I currently have.
How are the full-carbon knives I've been seeing around?
Dude, that totally sucks.. Hope you find something better and is more willing to accommodate and listen to you.
In Kitchen Stadium they each Chef uses their own knives that they bring with them (which could very well be Shun knives, but not a guarantee). This is because in the first season Iron Chef Ishinabe complained that the knives provided by the show were of poor quality and made it hard to cook.
In Kitchen Stadium they each Chef uses their own knives that they bring with them (which could very well be Shun knives, but not a guarantee). This is because in the first season Iron Chef Ishinabe complained that the knives provided by the show were of poor quality and made it hard to cook.
I know this stuff.
What sort of self-respecting chef would use someone else's knives anyway?
In the english training center attached to one of the buildings at my Chinese college there was a fight this last week between a teacher and a student.
The student was basically some gorilla who thought that he didn't have to obey the teachers request to shut the fuck up (of course said much nicer then that and many times over). Eventually after being banned from the class he kicked the door in and proceded to be a douche bag during the middle of final presentations.
My friend goes to get another teacher to help because this kid is a gorilla and my friend is not. Kid pushes the new senior teacher, teacher calls in chinese staff to get rid of the kid. Kid breaks free of staff, proceeds to pummle senior teacher bad enough he needs to goto the hospital. Police arrest gorilla, and with all the witnesses that kid is FUCKED in China, attacking a foreigner and such, we doubt he will get out before he's an old man. Also the entire Chinese staff had to kiss all the teachers asses for this fuck up since they didn't get rid of the student like a month ago after many repeated request.
It's also being said that the rich boys family isn't going to be very rich at all after the lawyers for the teacher suck them dry for having such an asshole of a son.
Sadly, I've found that 25% or more of the male students I have in China are just as terrible as this guy, only they are aren't gorilla's and so can't proceed to give a beat down.
Atleast the girls are just stupid hoes if they are going to be bad and generally are able to whisper to their friends at an acceptable "I can ignore you" level.
All in all, this is what the One Child policy has done to China, created an unbelievable amount of spoiled rich kids that think everyone needs to kiss their ass and that the rules don't apply since daddy is rich.
In Kitchen Stadium they each Chef uses their own knives that they bring with them (which could very well be Shun knives, but not a guarantee). This is because in the first season Iron Chef Ishinabe complained that the knives provided by the show were of poor quality and made it hard to cook.
I know this stuff.
What sort of self-respecting chef would use someone else's knives anyway?
My friends brother and his wife are both chefs and shared knives.....until she left them on top of the car Apparently he had knives in his little knife travel pouch that were pretty pricey, including some his father had brought back for him from Japan on a buisness trip. I'm gonna guess the knife sharing stopped after that! :P
Considering myself a self respecting chef, I would tell you that a chef of that caliber should be able to cook with the knives provided, even if they suck.
Sure, the set you're familiar with would be what you want in a contest for "best chef ever" but it shouldn't matter too much.
Well, it's official: the company has closed its doors for good.
Obviously, this is hardly a shock as they just moved into my boss' basement, but even after the move things still went worse. Clients were a bit creeped out about going to his home, and no money at all was coming in.
My boss is so embarrassed he's planning on moving down to Florida in the upcoming months to get away from virtually everyone that saw him fail.
Me? I get to spend my time actually honing my skills so I can get a real job instead of working on small, crappy projects. I need to start making quality, perhaps even small enterprise-level scripts.
Hopefully you got some sort of severance package...
Well since the buisness apparently moved into a basement I suspect he got 4 spiders and some old socks.
You know what kind of socks I mean.
Awful plaid ones. Yuck!
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
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SirUltimosDon't talk, Rusty. Just paint.Registered Userregular
Considering myself a self respecting chef, I would tell you that a chef of that caliber should be able to cook with the knives provided, even if they suck.
Sure, the set you're familiar with would be what you want in a contest for "best chef ever" but it shouldn't matter too much.
When you only have an hour to cook things are much different, you don't want to spend time playing around with a dull knife.
Considering myself a self respecting chef, I would tell you that a chef of that caliber should be able to cook with the knives provided, even if they suck.
Sure, the set you're familiar with would be what you want in a contest for "best chef ever" but it shouldn't matter too much.
Dull knives suck. Badly made knives...suck. And why is it that almost all of the professional cooking knives have such crappy grips? It's a major tool of the trade who why accept on that's going to wreck your hands.
Why do small business owners and consumers not understand the pricing or market value of professional software? Or the fact that a license allowing you to use it once or twice does, in fact, mean you can use it once or twice at a time?
Do these people call Ford and say: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO OF MY EMPLOYEES CAN'T USE MY FORD TRUCK AT THE SAME TIME AT DIFFERENT JOB SITES? THAT'S ABSURD!"
Do graphic designers often have a heart attack after seeing the price of something like CS3?
Why do small business owners and consumers not understand the pricing or market value of professional software? Or the fact that a license allowing you to use it once or twice does, in fact, mean you can use it once or twice at a time?
Do these people call Ford and say: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO OF MY EMPLOYEES CAN'T USE MY FORD TRUCK AT THE SAME TIME AT DIFFERENT JOB SITES? THAT'S ABSURD!"
Do graphic designers often have a heart attack after seeing the price of something like CS3?
Microsoft project is like this, the student basic is ~$100, Student Pro is ~$300.
But the business basic is ~$1300 and pro is $1700.... They never understand that yes, it is infact $1700 per computer they want to run the program on. Then they get angry at me for not selling them the student version.
Why do small business owners and consumers not understand the pricing or market value of professional software? Or the fact that a license allowing you to use it once or twice does, in fact, mean you can use it once or twice at a time?
Do these people call Ford and say: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO OF MY EMPLOYEES CAN'T USE MY FORD TRUCK AT THE SAME TIME AT DIFFERENT JOB SITES? THAT'S ABSURD!"
Do graphic designers often have a heart attack after seeing the price of something like CS3?
The difference is that once one person is dome with the ford truck, some one different can use it somewhere else.
With software licenses, it is a different beast entirely. My Visio license, at work, covers only me. When I'm working on a project that doesn't involve Visio, it is sitting there wasted, because I am still using my computer for other things.
In relation to SimBen and his pyramid scheme adventures, I had a similar experience except this random guy tried to offer me a job on the bus.
I was talking with my friend about how I'd love some extra hours at my current job or even just anothe seasonal job. The guy who offered me the job was kinda staring at the 2 of us and then just out of the blue offered us his sales pitch.
He basically told us that we'd be selling alarm systems if we started working for them. I told him I couldn't really cause I have college and stuff, but I gave him my name and number to be polite. I never did get a phone call back from them.
That Dave Fella on
PSN: ThatDaveFella
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
Why do small business owners and consumers not understand the pricing or market value of professional software? Or the fact that a license allowing you to use it once or twice does, in fact, mean you can use it once or twice at a time?
Do these people call Ford and say: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO OF MY EMPLOYEES CAN'T USE MY FORD TRUCK AT THE SAME TIME AT DIFFERENT JOB SITES? THAT'S ABSURD!"
Do graphic designers often have a heart attack after seeing the price of something like CS3?
The difference is that once one person is dome with the ford truck, some one different can use it somewhere else.
With software licenses, it is a different beast entirely. My Visio license, at work, covers only me. When I'm working on a project that doesn't involve Visio, it is sitting there wasted, because I am still using my computer for other things.
You can infact pay extra (much like you would do to pay extra insurance to let multiple people drive the truck) to have a floating lisence which lets you use a copy of a program on any computer the only thing is that you can only run it on one machine at a time.
Alternatively get your lazy arse off the computer and let someone else use it.
Eh? Office for 1300+? Project Pro caps at about 1k for a single retail license.
And they can always be reinstalled on a new machine.
All that being said, it's not uncommon for professional software (CAD programs, Photoshop...) to be 1k+ in cost. It's usually a huge return for the cost, but small business owners don't see it like that. How much income does a graphic designer generate over the course of a year? How much is due to the software they use? You could almost look at it as about 400/year salary over the course of a few years ('till an upgrade). What is that... 1-2% of an average designer's pay?
I dunno, I don't get the indignation they express over software prices.
I dunno, I don't get the indignation they express over software prices.
Think about it as paying a grand for a completely intangible product. Not to mention people are familiar with the idea that some software is so expensive when most of their experience with software prices come from shopping at Best Buy.
Why do small business owners and consumers not understand the pricing or market value of professional software? Or the fact that a license allowing you to use it once or twice does, in fact, mean you can use it once or twice at a time?
Do these people call Ford and say: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO OF MY EMPLOYEES CAN'T USE MY FORD TRUCK AT THE SAME TIME AT DIFFERENT JOB SITES? THAT'S ABSURD!"
Do graphic designers often have a heart attack after seeing the price of something like CS3?
The difference is that once one person is dome with the ford truck, some one different can use it somewhere else.
With software licenses, it is a different beast entirely. My Visio license, at work, covers only me. When I'm working on a project that doesn't involve Visio, it is sitting there wasted, because I am still using my computer for other things.
You can infact pay extra (much like you would do to pay extra insurance to let multiple people drive the truck) to have a floating lisence which lets you use a copy of a program on any computer the only thing is that you can only run it on one machine at a time.
Alternatively get your lazy arse off the computer and let someone else use it.
I may be wrong, but I believe that the way insurance works, in he sense of a business, is that you are required to have it insured for multiple people regardless. Software, on the other hand, is making you pay EXTRA to let different people use it. We didn't have to pay an extra fee for our printer to be hooked up to more than one computer, or for our coffee maker to be used by multiple people. Everyone can access our servers at the same time. The idea that software, which easily COULD be used by multiple people at once, is not allowed to be, makes no sense from this perspective. There are no actual limitations that prevent it, it's just a matter of developers and publishers trying to recieve more money for their product.
If we tried to charge a client a fee per individual who would be reading our reports, we would be laughed out of business.
As for getting off the computer, How the hell am I going to do my work then? All of my files are on my hard drive for all of the projects that I'm working on, and I have the computer set up optimally for my work prefferences. Swapping around computers in the office would be a crazy inefficiency.
Eh? Office for 1300+? Project Pro caps at about 1k for a single retail license.
These are AUD prices.
noobert on
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
edited December 2007
It's also down to Economics Evander.
We are using Photoshop as an example.
Photoshop for argement sake costs $100 for development (I am making these numbers up and it is obviously wrong)
100 people want it.
Therefore if 100 people and they each pay a dollar for the software then everyone will be happy.
However if one person buys a copy for a dollar and shares it with everyone they will be happy. Adobe however will go down the gurgler because they are not making profit on their product. Hence they charge for individual lisences.
Why do small business owners and consumers not understand the pricing or market value of professional software? Or the fact that a license allowing you to use it once or twice does, in fact, mean you can use it once or twice at a time?
Do these people call Ford and say: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO OF MY EMPLOYEES CAN'T USE MY FORD TRUCK AT THE SAME TIME AT DIFFERENT JOB SITES? THAT'S ABSURD!"
Do graphic designers often have a heart attack after seeing the price of something like CS3?
The difference is that once one person is dome with the ford truck, some one different can use it somewhere else.
With software licenses, it is a different beast entirely. My Visio license, at work, covers only me. When I'm working on a project that doesn't involve Visio, it is sitting there wasted, because I am still using my computer for other things.
You can get floating licenses that will work for any computer on the network. But these have their own problem. The only problem I have at my otherwise awesome job is that my company only has two licenses for the software I need and there are at least three people who use it regularly for their jobs. It's BS having to fight your coworkers for the right to do your job.
AlienCowThatMoos on
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
Why do small business owners and consumers not understand the pricing or market value of professional software? Or the fact that a license allowing you to use it once or twice does, in fact, mean you can use it once or twice at a time?
Do these people call Ford and say: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO OF MY EMPLOYEES CAN'T USE MY FORD TRUCK AT THE SAME TIME AT DIFFERENT JOB SITES? THAT'S ABSURD!"
Do graphic designers often have a heart attack after seeing the price of something like CS3?
The difference is that once one person is dome with the ford truck, some one different can use it somewhere else.
With software licenses, it is a different beast entirely. My Visio license, at work, covers only me. When I'm working on a project that doesn't involve Visio, it is sitting there wasted, because I am still using my computer for other things.
You can get floating licenses that will work for any computer on the network. But these have their own problem. The only problem I have at my otherwise awesome job is that my company only has two licenses for the software I need and there are at least three people who use it regularly for their jobs. It's BS having to fight your coworkers for the right to do your job.
That is not their problem.
That is your work's problem for being too fucking cheap to buy three lisences.
Photoshop for argement sake costs $100 for development (I am making these numbers up and it is obviously wrong)
100 people want it.
Therefore if 100 people and they each pay a dollar for the software then everyone will be happy.
However if one person buys a copy for a dollar and shares it with everyone they will be happy. Adobe however will go down the gurgler because they are not making profit on their product. Hence they charge for individual lisences.
No, it IS economics, but not that way.
It is a simple supply and demand issue. People need this software to run their business, and there are only a few places to get it, if there is really any option at all (if you don't have microsoft office suite, you're going to have a lot of trouble using outside files for ANYTHING without printing them out and retyping them.)
If it was truely a matter of production costs for the developer, then it would be far more sensible to raise the fixed price, rather than the variable price (each additional license that Adobe sells costs a negligable ammount. Often you do not even recieve a disc with a new license, since you already have one from previous licenses.)
It would be far more equitable for Adobe, et al, to raise the overall price of their business licenses, and then allow usage on multiple PCs by multiple users.
Why do small business owners and consumers not understand the pricing or market value of professional software? Or the fact that a license allowing you to use it once or twice does, in fact, mean you can use it once or twice at a time?
Do these people call Ford and say: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO OF MY EMPLOYEES CAN'T USE MY FORD TRUCK AT THE SAME TIME AT DIFFERENT JOB SITES? THAT'S ABSURD!"
Do graphic designers often have a heart attack after seeing the price of something like CS3?
The difference is that once one person is dome with the ford truck, some one different can use it somewhere else.
With software licenses, it is a different beast entirely. My Visio license, at work, covers only me. When I'm working on a project that doesn't involve Visio, it is sitting there wasted, because I am still using my computer for other things.
You can get floating licenses that will work for any computer on the network. But these have their own problem. The only problem I have at my otherwise awesome job is that my company only has two licenses for the software I need and there are at least three people who use it regularly for their jobs. It's BS having to fight your coworkers for the right to do your job.
That is not their problem.
That is your work's problem for being too fucking cheap to buy three lisences.
It isn't his work's fault that the software publisher feels the need to extort them in such a manner.
I dunno, I don't get the indignation they express over software prices.
Because they are ridiculous. I need to upgrade to Solidworks 2008 from 2006 because it won't run on Vista. Now, I'm just one dude who does 3D CAD/FEA on the side to pay for college, but they still want me to pay $3995 plus the $1200 yearly subscription fee. It's insane.
Do graphic designers often have a heart attack after seeing the price of something like CS3?
Yes, they do. But it's also worth noting that most graphic designers have horrible business sense and habitually under-value their own work (logo design for $50 anybody? yeah...), so it's hardly surprising that they would under value the work of software developers. Designer who do charge proper rates have no problem affording the tools of their trade, people who don't would need to do a couple hundred projects just to cover the cost of the software package, never mind a computer to run it on.
People bitch about software prices because they're fucking ridiculous.
That ford truck someone mentioned? After buying it, the company can do whatever the fuck they want with it (within the boundaries of the law). They can let anyone with a license drive it anywhere, with as many people and as much cargo as can be carried. And the truck's limitations are of legal (i.e. don't take it inside a shopping mall's corridors, don't carry 15 people at the cargo part) and physical nature. they're not arbitrary, made up by Ford, like "oh, yeah, you CAN'T take someone riding shotgun unless you pay the full price again".
I understand that Adobe needs to charge a price that won't make them fail at life, but the price they charge (here in Brazil, at least) is COMPLETELY outside the realities of the market. Szechuanosaurus, your comment is really nice, but hey, how can you charge the "real" value for your work if PEOPLE ARE NOT WILLING TO PAY IT. The prices here are so wrong (including MS, no cheap student licenses here) that I'm not surprised with the awfully high piracy rate. And even when people try to buy stuff from adobe, they usually turn it into a nightmarish Kafkan process.
It seems simple economics should play a role here. If it is not worth the price, don't buy it?
Now, some people will argue that it is necessary for their business, as other solutions will not work. This still fits within my first point. Obviously, if other solutions are inherently inferior and will not allow you to perform your job, then the product IS worth the price.
Edit: morality of price plays a certain role, I guess, but Adobe (and other companies) does not HAVE to play by your rules. They are a business, and the first rule of a business to make a profit.
Disco Bandit on
Pokemon Diamond: 5412 9146 7564
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
I dunno, I don't get the indignation they express over software prices.
Because they are ridiculous. I need to upgrade to Solidworks 2008 from 2006 because it won't run on Vista. Now, I'm just one dude who does 3D CAD/FEA on the side to pay for college, but they still want me to pay $3995 plus the $1200 yearly subscription fee. It's insane.
But I guess they assume that their demand is extremely inelastic so they can get away with screwing people without worrying too much (and I assume that high development costs are also a factor).
Yeah, to their credit it's less than I paid for 2006. I guess that's nice.
I guess my biggest issue is that it's practically a monopoly (Pro/E and Inventor exist, but they're the same damn price), and it's priced accordingly. There's no GIMP analogue. Firms have to keep upgrading to stay competitive, and while it's a drop in the bucket of the big guy's budgets, little guys pay huge amounts.
Whining about the price makes us little guys feel better. :P
Yeah, to their credit it's less than I paid for 2006. I guess that's nice.
I guess my biggest issue is that it's practically a monopoly (Pro/E and Inventor exist, but they're the same damn price), and it's priced accordingly. There's no GIMP analogue. Firms have to keep upgrading to stay competitive, and while it's a drop in the bucket of the big guy's budgets, little guys pay huge amounts.
Whining about the price makes us little guys feel better. :P
Apply for government small business grants, that's what they're there for.
It seems simple economics should play a role here. If it is not worth the price, don't buy it?
Now, some people will argue that it is necessary for their business, as other solutions will not work. This still fits within my first point. Obviously, if other solutions are inherently inferior and will not allow you to perform your job, then the product IS worth the price.
Edit: morality of price plays a certain role, I guess, but Adobe (and other companies) does not HAVE to play by your rules. They are a business, and the first rule of a business to make a profit.
"make a profit" does not justify overcharging
Also, in my line of work, the person who ULTIMATELY ends up paying the price is usually the taxpayer. You see, costs of software trickle down to our clients, most of whom are either government themselves, or else are government contractors.
edit: really, though, there is NO good justification for a multi-thousand dollar price tag on an item with a $0 variable cost, ESPECIALLY when usage of that item comes with a laundry list of arbitrary restrictions.
Professional software pays for itself. If you're rockin' the CS3 Master Collection across, say, 10 or 20 licenses and your first project doesn't pay it off ... then it's poor planning and investment, not an outrageous software price.
My employeer routinely contracts out to small print, video and web shops. For the amount they can charge, Adobe's licenses are a veritable write-off.
Posts
Sweet. I'll be back in a few days.
Switch: SW-3515-0057-3813 FF XIV: Q'vehn Tia
Obviously, this is hardly a shock as they just moved into my boss' basement, but even after the move things still went worse. Clients were a bit creeped out about going to his home, and no money at all was coming in.
My boss is so embarrassed he's planning on moving down to Florida in the upcoming months to get away from virtually everyone that saw him fail.
Me? I get to spend my time actually honing my skills so I can get a real job instead of working on small, crappy projects. I need to start making quality, perhaps even small enterprise-level scripts.
Switch: SW-3515-0057-3813 FF XIV: Q'vehn Tia
One October when I was really young, my family drove an rented RV across America. We'd been having issues with the electrics for the lights. At one point, we got pulled over by a motorcycle cop because one of the tail lights was out and so we had to pull in at the nearest garage to get it repaired. Now, naturally, this was a rental so my dad didn't expect to be liable for repairs that he hadn't explicitly instigated. So we're in this proper backwater garage, I don't recall which state, but it was pretty hot and basically in the middle of nowhere and my dad is on the phone to the rental company doing his polite Englishman thing asking them if they wouldn't mind awfully paying the garage to do the repairs and not really getting anywhere for hours. Eventually, he hangs up the phone and the mechanic/owner, probably in his sixties, leathery skin, stubbly face, grease up to his elbows, says to him 'Henry, you've got to learn to be more of an asshole.'
It's sound advice. Sometimes people will just ignore you even if you're right, so you have to stop being polite and patient and be more of an asshole. It's not pleasant and you probably won't enjoy doing it, but sometimes people leave you with no choice but to go ballistic.
Hopefully you got some sort of severance package...
In Kitchen Stadium they each Chef uses their own knives that they bring with them (which could very well be Shun knives, but not a guarantee). This is because in the first season Iron Chef Ishinabe complained that the knives provided by the show were of poor quality and made it hard to cook.
I know this stuff.
What sort of self-respecting chef would use someone else's knives anyway?
The student was basically some gorilla who thought that he didn't have to obey the teachers request to shut the fuck up (of course said much nicer then that and many times over). Eventually after being banned from the class he kicked the door in and proceded to be a douche bag during the middle of final presentations.
My friend goes to get another teacher to help because this kid is a gorilla and my friend is not. Kid pushes the new senior teacher, teacher calls in chinese staff to get rid of the kid. Kid breaks free of staff, proceeds to pummle senior teacher bad enough he needs to goto the hospital. Police arrest gorilla, and with all the witnesses that kid is FUCKED in China, attacking a foreigner and such, we doubt he will get out before he's an old man. Also the entire Chinese staff had to kiss all the teachers asses for this fuck up since they didn't get rid of the student like a month ago after many repeated request.
It's also being said that the rich boys family isn't going to be very rich at all after the lawyers for the teacher suck them dry for having such an asshole of a son.
Sadly, I've found that 25% or more of the male students I have in China are just as terrible as this guy, only they are aren't gorilla's and so can't proceed to give a beat down.
Atleast the girls are just stupid hoes if they are going to be bad and generally are able to whisper to their friends at an acceptable "I can ignore you" level.
All in all, this is what the One Child policy has done to China, created an unbelievable amount of spoiled rich kids that think everyone needs to kiss their ass and that the rules don't apply since daddy is rich.
My friends brother and his wife are both chefs and shared knives.....until she left them on top of the car
Sure, the set you're familiar with would be what you want in a contest for "best chef ever" but it shouldn't matter too much.
XBL : lJesse Custerl | MWO: Jesse Custer | Best vid ever. | 2nd best vid ever.
Well since the buisness apparently moved into a basement I suspect he got 4 spiders and some old socks.
You know what kind of socks I mean.
When you only have an hour to cook things are much different, you don't want to spend time playing around with a dull knife.
Dull knives suck. Badly made knives...suck. And why is it that almost all of the professional cooking knives have such crappy grips? It's a major tool of the trade who why accept on that's going to wreck your hands.
Do these people call Ford and say: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN TWO OF MY EMPLOYEES CAN'T USE MY FORD TRUCK AT THE SAME TIME AT DIFFERENT JOB SITES? THAT'S ABSURD!"
Do graphic designers often have a heart attack after seeing the price of something like CS3?
Microsoft project is like this, the student basic is ~$100, Student Pro is ~$300.
But the business basic is ~$1300 and pro is $1700.... They never understand that yes, it is infact $1700 per computer they want to run the program on. Then they get angry at me for not selling them the student version.
The difference is that once one person is dome with the ford truck, some one different can use it somewhere else.
With software licenses, it is a different beast entirely. My Visio license, at work, covers only me. When I'm working on a project that doesn't involve Visio, it is sitting there wasted, because I am still using my computer for other things.
I was talking with my friend about how I'd love some extra hours at my current job or even just anothe seasonal job. The guy who offered me the job was kinda staring at the 2 of us and then just out of the blue offered us his sales pitch.
He basically told us that we'd be selling alarm systems if we started working for them. I told him I couldn't really cause I have college and stuff, but I gave him my name and number to be polite. I never did get a phone call back from them.
You can infact pay extra (much like you would do to pay extra insurance to let multiple people drive the truck) to have a floating lisence which lets you use a copy of a program on any computer the only thing is that you can only run it on one machine at a time.
Alternatively get your lazy arse off the computer and let someone else use it.
Satans..... hints.....
And they can always be reinstalled on a new machine.
All that being said, it's not uncommon for professional software (CAD programs, Photoshop...) to be 1k+ in cost. It's usually a huge return for the cost, but small business owners don't see it like that. How much income does a graphic designer generate over the course of a year? How much is due to the software they use? You could almost look at it as about 400/year salary over the course of a few years ('till an upgrade). What is that... 1-2% of an average designer's pay?
I dunno, I don't get the indignation they express over software prices.
Think about it as paying a grand for a completely intangible product. Not to mention people are familiar with the idea that some software is so expensive when most of their experience with software prices come from shopping at Best Buy.
I may be wrong, but I believe that the way insurance works, in he sense of a business, is that you are required to have it insured for multiple people regardless. Software, on the other hand, is making you pay EXTRA to let different people use it. We didn't have to pay an extra fee for our printer to be hooked up to more than one computer, or for our coffee maker to be used by multiple people. Everyone can access our servers at the same time. The idea that software, which easily COULD be used by multiple people at once, is not allowed to be, makes no sense from this perspective. There are no actual limitations that prevent it, it's just a matter of developers and publishers trying to recieve more money for their product.
If we tried to charge a client a fee per individual who would be reading our reports, we would be laughed out of business.
As for getting off the computer, How the hell am I going to do my work then? All of my files are on my hard drive for all of the projects that I'm working on, and I have the computer set up optimally for my work prefferences. Swapping around computers in the office would be a crazy inefficiency.
These are AUD prices.
We are using Photoshop as an example.
Photoshop for argement sake costs $100 for development (I am making these numbers up and it is obviously wrong)
100 people want it.
Therefore if 100 people and they each pay a dollar for the software then everyone will be happy.
However if one person buys a copy for a dollar and shares it with everyone they will be happy. Adobe however will go down the gurgler because they are not making profit on their product. Hence they charge for individual lisences.
Satans..... hints.....
You can get floating licenses that will work for any computer on the network. But these have their own problem. The only problem I have at my otherwise awesome job is that my company only has two licenses for the software I need and there are at least three people who use it regularly for their jobs. It's BS having to fight your coworkers for the right to do your job.
That is not their problem.
That is your work's problem for being too fucking cheap to buy three lisences.
Satans..... hints.....
No, it IS economics, but not that way.
It is a simple supply and demand issue. People need this software to run their business, and there are only a few places to get it, if there is really any option at all (if you don't have microsoft office suite, you're going to have a lot of trouble using outside files for ANYTHING without printing them out and retyping them.)
If it was truely a matter of production costs for the developer, then it would be far more sensible to raise the fixed price, rather than the variable price (each additional license that Adobe sells costs a negligable ammount. Often you do not even recieve a disc with a new license, since you already have one from previous licenses.)
It would be far more equitable for Adobe, et al, to raise the overall price of their business licenses, and then allow usage on multiple PCs by multiple users.
It isn't his work's fault that the software publisher feels the need to extort them in such a manner.
Because they are ridiculous. I need to upgrade to Solidworks 2008 from 2006 because it won't run on Vista. Now, I'm just one dude who does 3D CAD/FEA on the side to pay for college, but they still want me to pay $3995 plus the $1200 yearly subscription fee. It's insane.
Yes, they do. But it's also worth noting that most graphic designers have horrible business sense and habitually under-value their own work (logo design for $50 anybody? yeah...), so it's hardly surprising that they would under value the work of software developers. Designer who do charge proper rates have no problem affording the tools of their trade, people who don't would need to do a couple hundred projects just to cover the cost of the software package, never mind a computer to run it on.
That ford truck someone mentioned? After buying it, the company can do whatever the fuck they want with it (within the boundaries of the law). They can let anyone with a license drive it anywhere, with as many people and as much cargo as can be carried. And the truck's limitations are of legal (i.e. don't take it inside a shopping mall's corridors, don't carry 15 people at the cargo part) and physical nature. they're not arbitrary, made up by Ford, like "oh, yeah, you CAN'T take someone riding shotgun unless you pay the full price again".
I understand that Adobe needs to charge a price that won't make them fail at life, but the price they charge (here in Brazil, at least) is COMPLETELY outside the realities of the market. Szechuanosaurus, your comment is really nice, but hey, how can you charge the "real" value for your work if PEOPLE ARE NOT WILLING TO PAY IT. The prices here are so wrong (including MS, no cheap student licenses here) that I'm not surprised with the awfully high piracy rate. And even when people try to buy stuff from adobe, they usually turn it into a nightmarish Kafkan process.
Now, some people will argue that it is necessary for their business, as other solutions will not work. This still fits within my first point. Obviously, if other solutions are inherently inferior and will not allow you to perform your job, then the product IS worth the price.
Edit: morality of price plays a certain role, I guess, but Adobe (and other companies) does not HAVE to play by your rules. They are a business, and the first rule of a business to make a profit.
That is ridiculously cheap for Solidworks.
A new licence is around the 10k mark
Satans..... hints.....
Yeah, to their credit it's less than I paid for 2006. I guess that's nice.
I guess my biggest issue is that it's practically a monopoly (Pro/E and Inventor exist, but they're the same damn price), and it's priced accordingly. There's no GIMP analogue. Firms have to keep upgrading to stay competitive, and while it's a drop in the bucket of the big guy's budgets, little guys pay huge amounts.
Whining about the price makes us little guys feel better. :P
Apply for government small business grants, that's what they're there for.
"make a profit" does not justify overcharging
Also, in my line of work, the person who ULTIMATELY ends up paying the price is usually the taxpayer. You see, costs of software trickle down to our clients, most of whom are either government themselves, or else are government contractors.
edit: really, though, there is NO good justification for a multi-thousand dollar price tag on an item with a $0 variable cost, ESPECIALLY when usage of that item comes with a laundry list of arbitrary restrictions.
My employeer routinely contracts out to small print, video and web shops. For the amount they can charge, Adobe's licenses are a veritable write-off.