Fedora philosophy (was ATI video comes out of the closet)

Dave Ihnat dihnat at dminet.com
Mon Sep 10 05:00:59 UTC 2007


On Sun, Sep 09, 2007 at 11:30:37PM -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> Consultants don't mind having more billable hours...  And they probably 
> prefer that the companies paying them have no in-house expertise.

Please be careful generalizing.  I'm a consultant, and my goal is to
always do things as quickly and cost-effectively as possible, AND to
have clients develop self-sufficiency.  Essentially, my purpose is to
put myself out of work at any given client.

This isn't silly, nor is it facetious.  For one thing, no matter how
often I try to get people to become self-sufficient, it usually doesn't
happen.  Either they don't listen to me (too often), or less often,
they DO develop in-house skills and staff, but I still have skills that
are useful in other areas.

However, in a few cases, I've helped find, hire, train, and then
walk away.  I still get called in on some of these; others, I just
give a ring every six months or a year and check that everything's OK.
They are good references, and I'm still available is something comes up.

Only short-sighted, incompetent consultants try to milk clients for hours
and try to keep them dependent.  This builds resentment that will build
over time and, eventually, bite 'em in the nethers.

Cheers,
--
	Dave Ihnat
	President, DMINET Consulting, Inc.
	dihnat at dminet.com




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