strongai

AA?

'Positioning' by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Where it all started.

Yeah, they'd have to be some new rookie company to make a mistake like that. In fact, it was EDS :0)

Yes. Took a job with a defense contractor in the UK. On day 1 they told me that it would take 6 months to get security clearance. The bummer was that the men's bathroom was in a secure area and I would have to be escorted every time. On day 1 I quit.

Maybe it was scanning us?

Yes please. Just the motivation I need.

It is so important to support things like Gimp. The alternative is truly being in thrall to Adobe forever.

Round about 1998 I worked in software pre-sales, and visited ARM in Cambridge, UK to try to convince them to buy our software. They didn't. My bad. But the guy I met was so ecstatic that they had just had an IPO, I bought £3K's worth of ARM stock on the back of his infectious enthusiasm. Over the next few months they rose to ... £140K but my greed held no bounds and the inevitable happened as the dot com boom boomed. I got out at +£20K but still rue my poor decision making. Of course, had I held for the long term, I would have made a lot more.

edit: typo

Well, I agree in principle, but fact is, I've never worked for an organization that didn't have its share of stupid rules. 'Stupid' is subjective as well, so I think it's a bit of a losing battle to up sticks every time you encounter an organizational habit you don't like. Sure, there'll be a tipping point, but I think it's fundamental to the nature of organizations that they can't please all people all the time.

I think it depends if you're interested in knowing how to solve these problems, or simply in solving them. If the latter, there's a bunch of commercial solvers out there. I won't name any for fear of an adverse reaction :0) but a trawl through the first page of Google results for 'optimization solvers' would probably work.

Hey zapperdapper

I'm so glad you posted. I'm a 57-year-old tech writer (UK-based) who followed a similar pattern to you for 10 years.

Then I got sick of static daily rates and now work as a permie (2 days in Birmingham, 3 days from home) for a US based tech company.

My first contract rate in 2004 was £350 a day, and now I'd probably struggle to make that again. Maybe £400, but above that, I'd need some special USPs. And from where I live, it's £50 a day to get to London, not to mention the extra 4 hour journey times!

Great to know you've found a perfect formula!

PS: Topping was also on my agenda until I reached 50.

I have always wanted to invent an ice-cube maker that works by being filled with water and placed in a microwave.

I worked there as a contract tech-writer a few years back. The people were great company and very talented. But the bling and the actual value proposition - who knows? I guess the market has decided.

Interesting factoids:

1. They have/had airport-style security scanners that shake you down on your way out. The idea is to prevent theft of their expensive phones and their expensive components and decorations (think diamonds). To get out, you press a button, and if the machine beeps, you get searched and your stuff gets scanned. Not sure how effective it was - if you had access to the valuable stuff (I didn't) I can imagine that swallowing a few bits and pieces might defeat the security measures.

2. When I started, they were owned by Nokia who had just been bought by Microsoft. So I spent months developing a user manual based on Windows Phone. On my last day, having handed everything over, they shyly told me that they'd also been developing an Android model in secret, just in case the market turned against them. Sure enough - they were snapped up by a private equity firm and their next model was an Android.

Thank you. A very illuminating description of how things work.