Take The Deposit And Run
Some people are good at business. Some are good at doing the work. Some are so centered on the work, that they forget the business. That's me. Some are so centered on the business that work takes a backseat. That would be a guy I'll call Urk.
He was the strangest example of manifested charisma. If you turned down the sound and watched him flail and grimace and convulse, you'd say, "poor guy, I'll look for his hockey helmet. Someone keep him from walking into traffic." Turn up the sound and get enveloped in his je ne c'est quois.
People fawned over him and regailed his skills and talents. "Oh, Urk will fix it." "Urk reccomended you. Urk is fantastic." Urk seemed to have a lot of knowledge to match his appeal. More than that, he had business acumen.
Urk set up this system of technical support. He would either work for $60/hr. or sell a block of time for a discount (like $45/hr. for 100 hrs. or $4500). He'd collect the money up front then be available at a moment's notice for 100 hrs. of support. This idea made sense. I've spent a lot of time doing 1 hour of work and 1 hour of explaining my bill for 1 hour. This was a good alternative for an IT professional who needed to be paid; and the business and needed an IT professional.
Urk started to take on bigger projects. Soon, he required help. That's where I came in. I did some database work and some web programming. He set his sites on a BIG job, one that would require an array of servers, real time processsing and Oracle. I committed to ramping up on Oracle. Part of that involved one of the servers; and about $200 in books.
Before I laid down my cash, I asked, "Are you sure this will go ahead? A 100% chance?"
"Yes," he replied. Out went the cash.
A month of so later, he came back to me and said, "Well, there's been a snag and I don't know when the project will get underway."
So, I just ate a server. Hooray. I was probably swept under Urk's appeal, so I kept working with him and doled my blame onto the wouldbe client. Later on, Urk and I worked to start a new company. Somewhere in the process, he decided to leave me out of the corporation. He didn't leave me out. Instead, he made the entry level into the new corporation so stratospheric, that I couldn't join in in their new venture; a little organization I like to call Black Hole Software. All that is another story.
As luck would have it, that fickle client contacted me directly, I waffled on the work, sore because he pulled our project. Nevertheless, I was polite. Late in the phone call, he asked, "What happened to the deposit I gave you and Urk? I gave you $6000 and never saw it again." I have $6000? When did I get $6000? I was broadsided. As it turned out, Urk took the deposit from our client and told me he was committed. Then Urk decided he didn't want to work on the project and pulled the plug. Urk spent $1500 on a server and pocketed the remaining $4500. I spent $1800 between books, a server and software and got nothing.
By this time, Urk was in Black Hole and we were chilly to one another. What did he there dwarfed what he did to me. Eventually his marriage unravelled. Made sense: he was this big opinionated buffoon. His wife was this hot blonde (look at old photos-- she tread water, his looks submerged). She met someone else and called it quits. Urk at the time was living in his wife's parent's basement (true class). After the break up; she moved upstairs. He stayed entrenched in the basement. To try to win her back, Urk would sit at the door to the stairs and wail in dispair. While he was undergoing his marital meltdown, he paid less attention to the Black Hole. More precisely, he abandonned the work but continued to collect money. When he was tired of this vagabond town, he made the rounds to his clients and collected all of the tech support subscriptions (remember the $45/hr. for 100 hrs.?) . Then he took his share of the cash (60+% of each subscription) and moved out of town. That left his partner who got sucked into the Black Hole to do sales. Black Hole's clients-- a mixture of business, individual consultants and non-profit organizations-- started to call for their speedy tech support and only got the sales guy/neophyte techie. So long and thanks for the fish.
He was the strangest example of manifested charisma. If you turned down the sound and watched him flail and grimace and convulse, you'd say, "poor guy, I'll look for his hockey helmet. Someone keep him from walking into traffic." Turn up the sound and get enveloped in his je ne c'est quois.
People fawned over him and regailed his skills and talents. "Oh, Urk will fix it." "Urk reccomended you. Urk is fantastic." Urk seemed to have a lot of knowledge to match his appeal. More than that, he had business acumen.
Urk set up this system of technical support. He would either work for $60/hr. or sell a block of time for a discount (like $45/hr. for 100 hrs. or $4500). He'd collect the money up front then be available at a moment's notice for 100 hrs. of support. This idea made sense. I've spent a lot of time doing 1 hour of work and 1 hour of explaining my bill for 1 hour. This was a good alternative for an IT professional who needed to be paid; and the business and needed an IT professional.
Urk started to take on bigger projects. Soon, he required help. That's where I came in. I did some database work and some web programming. He set his sites on a BIG job, one that would require an array of servers, real time processsing and Oracle. I committed to ramping up on Oracle. Part of that involved one of the servers; and about $200 in books.
Before I laid down my cash, I asked, "Are you sure this will go ahead? A 100% chance?"
"Yes," he replied. Out went the cash.
A month of so later, he came back to me and said, "Well, there's been a snag and I don't know when the project will get underway."
So, I just ate a server. Hooray. I was probably swept under Urk's appeal, so I kept working with him and doled my blame onto the wouldbe client. Later on, Urk and I worked to start a new company. Somewhere in the process, he decided to leave me out of the corporation. He didn't leave me out. Instead, he made the entry level into the new corporation so stratospheric, that I couldn't join in in their new venture; a little organization I like to call Black Hole Software. All that is another story.
As luck would have it, that fickle client contacted me directly, I waffled on the work, sore because he pulled our project. Nevertheless, I was polite. Late in the phone call, he asked, "What happened to the deposit I gave you and Urk? I gave you $6000 and never saw it again." I have $6000? When did I get $6000? I was broadsided. As it turned out, Urk took the deposit from our client and told me he was committed. Then Urk decided he didn't want to work on the project and pulled the plug. Urk spent $1500 on a server and pocketed the remaining $4500. I spent $1800 between books, a server and software and got nothing.
By this time, Urk was in Black Hole and we were chilly to one another. What did he there dwarfed what he did to me. Eventually his marriage unravelled. Made sense: he was this big opinionated buffoon. His wife was this hot blonde (look at old photos-- she tread water, his looks submerged). She met someone else and called it quits. Urk at the time was living in his wife's parent's basement (true class). After the break up; she moved upstairs. He stayed entrenched in the basement. To try to win her back, Urk would sit at the door to the stairs and wail in dispair. While he was undergoing his marital meltdown, he paid less attention to the Black Hole. More precisely, he abandonned the work but continued to collect money. When he was tired of this vagabond town, he made the rounds to his clients and collected all of the tech support subscriptions (remember the $45/hr. for 100 hrs.?) . Then he took his share of the cash (60+% of each subscription) and moved out of town. That left his partner who got sucked into the Black Hole to do sales. Black Hole's clients-- a mixture of business, individual consultants and non-profit organizations-- started to call for their speedy tech support and only got the sales guy/neophyte techie. So long and thanks for the fish.
posted by A. Proud (Foolsoft Employee) at 5:01 PM
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