Working for a subcontracting company, we have to work on both sides of the ball. We get shafted by the client, and then we have to turn around and shaft the vendors. This was probably made by product vendors who are at the end of this line of BS. Don't worry though, they'll pull a fast one on you as soon as you've got your guard down. Plus, it's customary to pay them a bit fat, when they've gotten you out of a bind on a previous job.

>> ^pipp3355:
ok. so is this 'bad form' only when dealing with small businesses / contract work or should it apply to other buyer-seller relationships (e.g. wallmart & customer)? and what about auctions like ebay? or financial services like loans?


I think the point of the video is that it is humorously comparing things like simple purchases at WalMart (where the customer doesn't try to haggle the price) to larger client/vender relationships in the corporate world. I wouldn't over analyze it.

>> ^pipp3355:
ok. so is this 'bad form' only when dealing with small businesses / contract work or should it apply to other buyer-seller relationships (e.g. wallmart & customer)? and what about auctions like ebay? or financial services like loans?


Between Walmart and a customer, you're making a relatively small purchase, whereas Walmart is making large, bulk purchases from a vendor. Even if Walmart employees had the authority, they probably wouldn't give you much of a discount on the $10 toy or shirt you're buying.

As for eBay, it's supply and demand... people bid what an item is worth to them, and whoever is willing to pay more wins the auction. There's no negotiating there.

Your video, The Vendor Client relationship - in real world situations, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

>> ^alizarin:
Another side to this is when a supplier is making a very hefty profit and you're giving them the option of coming down or you going elsewhere - like cell plans. I've never done it but I've been in the room with a client of mine who can talk suppliers into dropping their price with amazingly little hesitation... make me feel like I've been paying the politeness tax.


Well that is exactly what happens with some customers. From my point of view, if the customer rightly assumes I'm going to make some profit, then, they want me to cut the margin or they will find somebody else, who will work for cheap.... China comes to mind, or countries that employ children or have little environmental laws, or safety standards, well, then that is not a good customer.

Not all profit is "hefty". Profit is not bad. Profit is good. Gouging is bad. Greed is bad.

I prefer in business that, everybody should profit, A healthy vendor is a good vendor, a healthy customer is a good customer.

>> ^pipp3355:
ok.. i'm missing something here.. can somebody give me the sesame street breakdown of this please? i don't get it. whats this about?


Yeah, it's more understandable when you are a private contractor (or small business) giving quotes to a client. I typically stay hourly when working with clients, because the project scope is always changing, which means I invoice them at the end of the project.

I've submitted invoices with the final hour tally (and dollar amount) and had many clients try to renegotiate the price after the work was already complete. That is just bad form.

>> ^pipp3355:
ok.. i'm missing something here.. can somebody give me the sesame street breakdown of this please? i don't get it. whats this about?


When the customer tries to dictate the price of something, you hear these exact kinds of conversations. This happens alot in manufacturing, not so much at resturaunts and video stores.
If you want the business bad enough, you have to give in to them. Or if the request they made is completely unreasonable, and they know it, they will pay the quoted prices, but bitch about it.

I would like to send this video to all my customers...but I won't:{

>> ^Memorare:
Ayn Rand is back and playing WoW?!


You should probably re-read it; he's pretty much an anti-Ayn Rand kinda guy.

His conclusion is that government intervention is necessary to keep markets in a state where they really serve the common good, even in World of Warcraft.

Personally, I dunno much about the WoW "Depression", but I think Blizzard probably worked hard to create a deflationary cycle. The game's overwhelming trend is toward inflation, and there's an absolute lower bound on deflation (vendor prices) and no debt at all, so it's probably a "good" deflation (the kind Austrian economists daydream about).

But mostly I'm shocked that such detailed analysis is being done on the WoW economy, and that some of the people doing it have a reasonably unique viewpoint on causes and solutions for the real world's depression that sound dangerously sane.

Somehow the candy cane vendor pulling a shotgun doesn't seem that impossible...

Not true joe, the rate of ip4 uptake is not constant, and the rate of ip4 returns isnt keeping up with it.

At some point within the next 10 years, we will run out of allocatable address space.

And dual-stack IP6 wont cut it either, cause you still need ip4 addys to run with it.

Vendors dont currently make any ip6 only compatible CPE, and the commercial grade stuff that ISP's buy still isnt anywhere near ready for full deployment. It lacks key stuff thats required to be able to fully service customers.

Its a big issue...cause when space runs out, you may be waiting 10-20 min, or even more, just to get a connection to the net.

Heres a forum posting I made on an aussie ISP website called Whirlpool, sparking up a discussion about this exact issue with several of australias leading ISP engineers. (They have "ISP representative" under their names).

A lengthy, but decent read.

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/867470.html

LOL. Your comment was insightful. And almost made me throw up.

In reply to this comment by Psychologic:
This is why government-funded healthcare may be a bad idea. Imagine what their medical bills will be like in the not-too-distant future. Maybe we can tax junk food to pay for it. =)


There is still worse though. I went to a state fair and noticed vendors selling deep-fried cheeseburgers. They also had "fried Pepsi", which were funnel cakes where the water in the batter mixture had been replaced with Pepsi syrup.

This is why government-funded healthcare may be a bad idea. Imagine what their medical bills will be like in the not-too-distant future. Maybe we can tax junk food to pay for it. =)


There is still worse though. I went to a state fair and noticed vendors selling deep-fried cheeseburgers. They also had "fried Pepsi", which were funnel cakes where the water in the batter mixture had been replaced with Pepsi syrup.

>> ^Enzoblue: I wonder how many in the third world need to die to maximize profits.


That's pointlessly harsh. He took a profit maximizing product, which was cost prohibitive to its target market, and redesigned it to make it both cost effective, and locally producible.

He expects to get paid well for his time, but he makes locally producible one of his design constraints. That means most of the money you see in his eyes will go into the pockets of locals who have the job of producing these incredibly important devices.

He didn't design for vendor lock in, he is not creating unserviceable devices which are designed to become obsolete. I don't see any of the evils of profit maximization in what he is designing.

If you think the US and EU should set up a fund to buy public-health-centric patents and public domain them, I'll support that, but don't shit talk the guy because he expects to be paid for the time he spends doing vitally useful innovation.

Looks like it's been mentioned, but one doesn't simply "turn off" an MRI. Ramping down an MRI may mean a full day (or more) of downtime and a call to the vendor to send out an engineer to administrate the ramp down and ramp up, which isn't cheap. Some MRIs have an Emergency Quench that will kill the field quickly (within minutes), but it can result in irreversible damage to the coil, so their use is recommended only when someone's life is threatened by an object pinning them to the machine.

What congress should do is abolish exclusive contracts that prohibit an employer from hiring anyone outside the union.

It's the same thing as Microsoft's old contracts with vendors that prevented them from selling Linux.