Friday, August 05, 2005

Just an ordinary bathroom scale:

I've been programming computers that an indirect customer buys from a nearby vendor. Recently the vendor sent a maintenance guy here with a bathroom scale. I escorted him to our lab, where he placed one of their machines on the scale and weighed it. Then he drove back to his office. I've never seen a computer weighed on a bathroom scale before! I was puzzled. After all, they could have asked me (or anyone who works here) to bring a scale from home, weigh the computer, and email the results.

It turns out that another prospective customer had asked the vendor, “How much does that model computer of yours weigh, anyhow?” Sending someone to our place with a scale was the easiest way for the vendor to answer the question. The vendor couldn't ask us to help because it was HIS problem, not ours. It's real interesting that the vendor didn't have the answer in the first place...

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