I have a super interesting story to share: In my new lab I have one network connection for my Desktop. Since I always bring my laptop, I asked for one more connection. The new lab has every facilities for that and even we have two extra connection port in the room; all cabling and everything already done and it turn out that all the department has to do is to activate those connections! cool!
Now guess what they did! they ask 300$ for the activation! I have never heard of so much amount of money just to activate one connection and unfortunately I never thought it can even be charged. Then I thought probably those extra connections are just-for-show they really don't have any cabling inside them but guess what, they do have cabling and everything but where does that amount of money coming from?
Here is the explanation, in our previous building, if a new connection had to be established, they had to buy the cables and connect the new port to the switch and so and so... and all those things cost 300 bucks! So in the new building even though everything is already done they just charge that much amount of money to activate the connection! Wow! what a lovely elegant idea! Since I don't have money what I did was buy a 10$ switch which comes with two cables. I connect the switch to the network port and connect my machines to my new switch. Obviously that solves my problem but I am thinking what will I do if one fine morning they asked me for million dollar because that the cost of a 3GHz computer when the department was established!
Now guess what they did! they ask 300$ for the activation! I have never heard of so much amount of money just to activate one connection and unfortunately I never thought it can even be charged. Then I thought probably those extra connections are just-for-show they really don't have any cabling inside them but guess what, they do have cabling and everything but where does that amount of money coming from?
Here is the explanation, in our previous building, if a new connection had to be established, they had to buy the cables and connect the new port to the switch and so and so... and all those things cost 300 bucks! So in the new building even though everything is already done they just charge that much amount of money to activate the connection! Wow! what a lovely elegant idea! Since I don't have money what I did was buy a 10$ switch which comes with two cables. I connect the switch to the network port and connect my machines to my new switch. Obviously that solves my problem but I am thinking what will I do if one fine morning they asked me for million dollar because that the cost of a 3GHz computer when the department was established!
So let me get this straight: we have an institutional, bureaucratic charge associated with something that used to cost money, but we're keeping the charge for historical reasons, leading to underutilization (aka waste) of our resources?
ReplyDeleteSo let me get this straight:
ReplyDelete"we have an institutional",
Yes we do.
"bureaucratic charge"
Not sure! should I called bureaucratic charges. I don't what to call these charges.
"associated with something that used to cost money",
Yes, right
but we're keeping the charge for
"historical reasons",
The reason is unknown to me :(
leading to
"underutilization (aka waste) of our resources?"
One very logical consequence is underutlization. If the resources are costly, one logical consequence is to find alternative resources; if there is any that may cause underutilization of the original resources.
I asked Jim summers about it, and he said that the reason is that IT is trying to recoup some of their costs that they incurred when installing the hardware in the first place. I asked him if that means that IT is operating at a loss, and he said that they are. I guess that's just their M.O.
ReplyDelete