Phil Cook wrote:
> And lo on Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:11:41 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did 
> spake, saying:
> 
>> This cost us $1 million US. And yet it doesn't seem to 
>> "understand" about VAT.
>>
>> (But then, neither do the guys in HQ, despite us explaining it 
>> multiple times. They even had our accountant phone the Inland Revenue 
>> to offocially ask if we can call it "sales tax" on the invoice. They 
>> were really shocked when the answer was "no"...)
> 
> Perhaps because shockingly Sales Tax isn't the same as VAT :-)

Yeah... These guys don't seem to comprehend that the UK isn't the USA. 
When we tell them things like this, they seem to think we're making a 
fuss about nothing.

>> Initially the software was configured with the UK currency as "lbs". (!)
> 
> Hey it's historically accurate.

Do you have a cite for that?

>> they send you a printed invoice with hand-written corrections, *what* 
>> are you going to think about that company??)
> 
> That they're a small firm with no grasp of IT systems, which is fine if 
> they're plumbers.

Yeah. Not so good in an industry that's ruled by computers.

But then, this company generally seems to talk like a big firm and act 
like a small 1-man band...

> <snip>
>> This has trippled our accountant's workload.
> 
> And HQ have been told this?

Endlessly. Our accountant spent *months* trying to get them to 
reconfigure the software to allow her to do her job properly. They 
variously didn't understand what she meant, or thought she was just 
being awkward for the sake of causing trouble.

> <snip>

> 
> But at a 4x heightened efficiency no doubt.

Well, it's Cisco, so at least you can geniunely say it's the best 
product on the market. (Unlike the Dell thing...) It's expensive, but at 
least you can say you're getting build quality.

OTOH, our current switches have worked perfectly for over 10 years too...

>> 5. This just in - HQ have proposed a new, standardised company-wide 
>> computer naming scheme.
>>
>> They want to name each computer according to where it is in the building.
> 
> Beautiful; you have pointed out that this will break the audit trail 
> currently in place, breaks some software, only really works if you have 
> one computer per location, and will cost time and money every time a 
> computer is moved - whereas using the description field solves the 
> problem that they state (being able to see where a computer is) without 
> any of these problems.

You just sumerised the whole CF, right there.

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