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The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

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Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#91

Post by throwaway743 »

This happened at my last employer all the damn time.

One time that employer charged the DSNY $500k-$700k to do a "site migration". I ended up doing 99% of the job (not exaggerating), having to remote into their old locked down windows server that runs their busted CMS by HP, and format the html and inline css for every page then paste into the new template. It was long (number of pages and slow as hell load times) and tedious, but easy as shit.

Guess what I got as a raise. Jack shit, while they made out like bandits. My salary was 5 figures, they pulled the same shit with NYC Dept of Health right after that project, and once again I got stuck with it and didn't get a raise.

Additionally, they internationally outsourced nearly every government project. I was the only dev there and they didn't want to hire any others, even though it seemed like a security risk and the shit we got in return was well... shit.

Bitching aside, government should be more stingy with contractors, scrutinize them and every line item, and change how they handle budgets from a "if you don't spend it by fiscal end you don't get a budget increase or rollover, rather a decrease" approach to something more efficient.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#93

Post by harry8 »

Everything in a set of financial statements that the auditor refuses to sign off should be considered bullshit.

So that would be the financial statements of every bit of pentagon funding, which will no doubt continue to increase.

An assertion of a $600 hammer (or a $6 one) should be considered equally as a billion dollar unicorn in those financial statements.

You don't have to like it. But you cannot trust any of it.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#94

Post by porknubbins »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #22
unreal37 wrote: post #4

The so-called "real" explanation of the $600 hammer doesn't make the story any better. The hammer did indeed cost $435. If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. Just because the extra $420 was "R&D expense" for something else, doesn't make the hammer any cheaper. Even in the most charitable explanation, this makes it impossible to know the real cost of anythin…

That last paragraph, is that unusual? As a kind of sysadmin, I was fairly ready to go week 1 on most my projects. But in my erp space, developers and testers have to understand business, processes, functional aspects, etc. Whether specifics of clients payroll process or their finances or whatever. So "spend a week reading manuals" is normal. We call it "onboarding". And of course they're getting paid - they're not do…

I am a contractor in a niche industry but a little downtime, of up to maybe 2-3 days at the start of a new project is enormously valuable as time to think deeply about the task before you have an overwhelming to-do list. Getting paid $1500 a day to read manuals is not at all surprising when I know people who have gotten almost that much to do little to nothing.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#95

Post by oatmeal1 »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #2

Not surprised. So many stories about an organization doing something that’s evidently crazy turn out to be bullshit. The truth is always more nuanced than what gets reported. People are (almost) never as incompetent/crazy/malicious as it might seem on a cursory review.

I mean we have a trillion dollar fighter which is still dangerous for pilots. The small things are overblown and the big things even when they hit the news don't get appreciated.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#96

Post by zippyman55 »

I needed a stupid knob for a rotary switch. I would have loved to have gotten one at the local Radio Shack. No, I had to submit paperwork, and the minimum quantity the buyer would get was 25 I think. Anyway, it cost $225 in total. It still pisses me off.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#97

Post by throw0101c »

logdap wrote: post #32
emodendroket wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess "the dangerously hot coffee that fused a customer's labia" does not have the same punch when trying to argue for tort reform.

That's a myth within a myth. The coffee was industry standard temperature, they still serve coffee that hot today (Wikipedia says as much.) The lawsuit was justified though, because the cup design was defective. It shouldn't have collapsed like it did.

> The coffee was industry standard temperature, they still serve coffee that hot today (Wikipedia says as much.)

Which is probably too hot. See "A Review of Hot Beverage Temperatures—Satisfying Consumer Preference and Safety":

* https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1750-38...

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#98

Post by NotYourLawyer »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #95
NotYourLawyer wrote: post #2

Not surprised. So many stories about an organization doing something that’s evidently crazy turn out to be bullshit. The truth is always more nuanced than what gets reported. People are (almost) never as incompetent/crazy/malicious as it might seem on a cursory review.

I mean we have a trillion dollar fighter which is still dangerous for pilots. The small things are overblown and the big things even when they hit the news don't get appreciated.

>trillion dollar fighter

Whut

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#99

Post by SkipperCat »

harry8 wrote: post #89
steveklabnik wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hot coffee lawsuit is the first thing I think of here. Heck even the name is like… whew.

> The hot coffee lawsuit ... So much lawyers' propaganda. We are engineers here. We are aware that coffee is water that boils at 100 degrees centigrade and gets no hotter than that. Every damn idiot and those more intelligent know full well that writing "Caution: contents hot" in microscopic text does absolutely nothing to make recently boiled water more safe. Sure we should all feel sorry for someone who is badly bu…

From Wikipedia... "McDonalds had received more than 700 reports of people burned by their coffee to varying degrees of severity". I remember reading a lot about this. It was the fact that McDonalds knew they had a dangerous product but wanted to keep it "hot" at the drive-thru so it would still be drinkable after people finished their car rides. That was a large factor of why the courts found McDonalds 80% liable in the case.

Re: The myth of the $600 hammer (1998)

#100

Post by [deleted] »

gumby wrote: post #27
unreal37 wrote: post #4

The so-called "real" explanation of the $600 hammer doesn't make the story any better. The hammer did indeed cost $435. If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. Just because the extra $420 was "R&D expense" for something else, doesn't make the hammer any cheaper. Even in the most charitable explanation, this makes it impossible to know the real cost of anythin…

> I've worked for companies where they took money meant for one thing, and used it for something else. "Can you record your hours on this project under this different expense code?" This stops them from going over budget and having to explain to the client, but takes the money from another project of that client instead. Seems like a whistleblower could put a stop to this, and get a hefty reward as well. It's a felon…

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