[rescue] cheapness..

[Chris Hedemark]

On Mon, 2002-06-24 at 10:44, Linc Fessenden wrote:
> Just a quick question for you all..  Is $my_company the only cheap ass
> company out there or do any of you (who are not self employed) run any of
> your equipment (unix boxen) at your office?

I'm self employed, but only to facilitate some of the oddball requests I
had that $client's HR people couldn't grok.

Yes, $client is cheap.  Yes, I run some of my own unix boxen for them. 
But they are located in my home, and they are not performing critical
functions.  i.e. if I found another job and pulled the VPN plug, any
suffering they experience won't be because of my equipment missing.

I did this quite intentionally, BTW.

> I constantly use *my* laptop at work as a secondary workstation and also
> have a pII400 running a temperature monitoring app there, and then I have
> someone else here borrowing one of my macs to use as a
> (basically) terminal.  The day I leave this place they are gonna go into
> shock as I pull all my machines with me. :-)

I'm very careful to never let employers see me working with my own
equipment.  For one thing, it opens up a legal can of worms (i.e. they
may try to demand inspection of your hard drive to assure them that
intellectual property isn't being transferred).  I didn't say it makes
sense, but that's how some companies behave.  Also, you are teaching
them that they don't have to spend capital on useful hardware if you are
doing it for them.  Better to whine and complain about how much more
work you could get done if they bought you a new notebook. :)

If you work in the health care industry or banking industry, you may end
up having to destroy your hard disks when you pull the machines out due
to the new privacy laws in the states (are you in the states?).

All in all, bringing your own kit to work opens up a can of worms, with
the employer being the only one REALLY benefiting from your generosity. 
You may think you are a benefactor but it is an illusion.  They would
still pay you the same if you only used their kit.