24 Mar
2024
24 Mar
'24
7:23 a.m.
On Sun, Mar 17, 2024 at 03:58:00PM -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
I distinctly remember a comment from a DEC customer at DECUS: "When I'm at
DECUS, I always seek out the people wearing t-shirts, because I know they are the ones who
know what they are talking about."
Reminds of something that happened at a previous job, where I was part
of the small Unix team. We had bought an expensive pile of HP-UX related
kit from HP and apparently also some HP consultant time for training
on said kit. First day of training, HP consultant shows up in usual
full on business attire. Starts talking about stuff (e.g. SAN management
and and clustering related things) in a very ... "HP business" kind of
lingo, which rubbed us rather the wrong way. So I interrupt him, pointing
out: a) we already understand Unix TYVM and are mostly interested in the
HP-UX specific details and b) drop the business lingo and start talking
plain text, we're Unix admins, not MBAs. With a heavy unsaid implication
of "You are wearing a suit while explaining tech, that makes it hard to
take you seriously".
So, step 1) said HP consultant _did_ drop the "HP business" lingo and
started talking plain Unix. And step 2) beginning the next day, he always
showed up at our site in shirt and jeans and was taken seriously now ;-)
That was ... sometime in the early 2000.
Kind regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison