No need for you to read this, it is just a work related rant that I need to get out.
What do you do when you are trying to provide training on equipment that is so far out of date even the customers complain it is old?
I work in a program that provides training and part of that is computer based. The computer based training partially is on software that is being used and sold to the customers we are trying to train. The computers we use now were “used” machines when we got them in 2005. We have done a few minor upgrades to them – software, few hard drives and optical drives with writer capability but the processors are still old Pentium units. With the advancement in software, including our own, they are not adequate but our IT and Management groups say otherwise. Management says we must provide a business case if we want to upgrade the computers. That business case would justify the total costs of new computers but why justify that cost when you are charged a monthly service cost anyway. Shouldn’t that monthly service fee cover periodic upgrades of the equipment they are caring for? We are charged a monthly service by IT for these computers that far exceeds the cost of buying the same unit or even a unit that is several versions better. In fact the charge we get would pay for a new off the shelf computer that any of us would love in about 3 months. IT says these units are plenty capable for the new software. We differ on that point, because when the new software is loaded on these units it has caused 2 of 12 to lock up completely. They say it must be some other problem. Case in point, I have a laptop that was built in 2005. My monthly service fee for that unit is over $400. It is not worth $100 on the market now. It has gotten two new Hard drives in the past 6 years to keep it serviceable. I baby it as much as possible so it will not crash as I hate to go through the ordeal of a wasted week to get my software back on a new hard drive (our IT can’t seem to move things over).
It is becoming extremely hard to get decent reviews by our trainees when we can’t even keep the equipment working for them, add to that the fact that they now have better equipment than we do and we are trying to sell them our software? Somewhere we have lost the focus of our intent with the focus of managing costs. I think maybe we are in the mode of save a penny to loose a dime now. NO, I Know we are. – WD0AJG