Tech Vs. Business? 607
An anonymous reader writes "I've recently found a spot in a large company, and I'm noticing that here a lot of people on the technology side are very anti-business. Tech makes up about 40% of the total line of business staff, but the whole LOB is only a tiny percentage of the larger company in the financial industry. I personally haven't seen this before in prior jobs, but I'm told that this animosity is commonplace. So I come to Slashdot to find out if others have experienced this adversarial relationship between business and tech, and if so, what was the effect on the overall success of the business?"
common place (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You could at least explain what you mean (Score:2, Interesting)
IT is anti-business because they prevent people from using IM to keep in touch with their baby sitter, mistress, or downloading a virus.
IT is anti-business because they block youtube and online stock trading and the flavor of the week streaming radio station.
IT is anti-business because they run the company firewall.
Business is not anti-tech at all. In fact Business loves technology so much they don't care how it works, if it works, or if there is some better product. All they care about is that it's cool, they saw it on TV, or they downloaded it. It is, of course, IT's fault that it does not work, blew up their computer, or caused the entire accounting database be sent via e-mail to someone in the Ukraine.
Re:common place (Score:5, Interesting)
I think part of that 'works like magic' mystique is due to how reliable the electric grid, water and sewer pipelines and telephone and data networks have been. it's more profitable for the utilities if the system never fails, or as close to never as is possible. companies probably don't understand why they need an IT department at all, they don't understand why all the utility they need can't just come from an outside company. after all if a company is going to smelt aluminum they don't go around building an atomic power plant to run their smelters, they find a cheap source of electricity preferably reachable by major shipping lanes, and let the utility company worry about where the power comes from.
computers are still relatively new, and eventually you won't need a whole staff of IT gurus to keep a network up and running, when a basic desktop computer can get rid of every moving part, there is less to replace and maintain, thus less IT workers needed... large websites and databases will get easier to manage, eventually, the only thing that won't go away is the need for real security. because hacking is getting more and more economically promising in many places in Africa and former eastern block nations. so security is where real IT growth is, computers will get more reliable and software easier to manage, but hackers are getting smarter and more skilled every single year.
Programmer Priests (Score:3, Interesting)
I called these types 'Programmer Priests'. Their style seemed reminiscent of history lessons that described Incan temple rites where the head priest would routinely trundle up the local pyramid, telling the villagers and King to wait while he consulted the Gods concerning whatever tragedy needed divine intervention that month.
Outside of a good view and a supply of virgins, nice clothes and fresh fruit from the village, of course the Incan priests had nothing to do at the top... beyond theater.
The early white coated programmers felt this same power. Everyone was at their whim - even their superiors. 'Be nice' or you'd wait for an eternity before the computer gods sent your answer back with the priests.
That particular IT style persists today.
I make it a habit to kick dirt on those types every chance I get...
Re:What do you mean, Anti-business? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a situation where there is complexity that the user does not understand or want to understand, but the complexity cannot be removed in the simple way they hope. They might shout, "Just make it right!" and leave the room. One is faced with a difficult choice of implementing an ugly fudge which makes you look bad, or forcing the user to understand and still making you look bad by being perceived as a "pest".
For example, one client wanted a list of integer percentages that added up to 100 percent. In practice, the numbers were decimal, but if you rounded them then they would not always add up to 100 percent.
Before rounding:
40.4
52.4
7.2
-----
100.0
After rounding:
40
52
7
---
99
(Sorry, I can't get slashdot to line up the columns properly)
The client did not seem to "get" this issue and just wanted the integers to add up to 100. The programmer eventually built an elaborate scheme to fudge the results by "bumping" up or down one of the numbers closest to 0.5. For example, they may make the first integer into "41" instead of "40". This later could generate a phone-call by an astute accountant working with the client. Sometimes you can't please everybody and just have to take lumps. Put extensive footnotes to cover your butt if possible.
(based on a story I submitted to C2.com wiki)
Re:One thing I have noticed (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do businesses even have IT departments (Score:5, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be simpler and better to contract that out? Here are the benefits:
Cost. There's no need to hire and maintain unnecessary staff. If there's an emergency, the contractor can bring in more people to handle it, but most of the time they won't need to dedicate even one full-time staffer to your office.
Versatility. The contractor will work with many clients and many environments. That means that they will have a diversity of experience that will allow them to deal with problems quickly. They will also have the experience to point out better solutions.
Employee satisfaction. The contractors personnel will need to be respectful and courteous to your staffers, or else you will find a different contractor. They will work to find solutions (and charge you more money) rather than making excuses about why your problem can't be solved so they can stay in their budget.
Come to think of it, maybe I should start a business doing this for people.
The golden rule applies... (Score:4, Interesting)
OTOH well, if you find (say) a good auto mechanic, see what the difference in your bill looks like depending on (a) how expensive a car you drive in with is, and (b) how close to peonage said mechanic is treated by said customer.
I think independence may be the key -- if you work within the firm as a permanent (or long-term contractor) then the perception of your technical skills are diminished as time passes, as familiarity dilutes your apparent value. From outside the company, well, they may treat you like the auto mechanic in the above example or they may treat you like a saviour, the person who recovered their email / payroll / customer database.
If they're rude, you have the option of legal retaliation when you give them the next quote -- if you don't want to deal with them, raise your contract rate to an absurdly high level. Either they'll ignore you or you'll be paid commensurate with the aggro involved (they can sneer at you all they want if you're driving the Porsche while they're driving the clapped-out 1972 Pinto, no?)
That said, with the skills crisis here in Australia, engineers and skilled trades of any type are pretty well regarded due to the tight market, and that's probably why I don't see a lot of Tech-Business animosity.
Re:Polish up your resume and look for a tech compa (Score:3, Interesting)
Corporate vs. IT (Score:2, Interesting)
In my experience, it is best to just nod and say as little as possible, even if you are at a nice place having dinner with an exec. Simply pass pertinent info along to a manager (Well the reason they can't copy that 7GB database to a win98 box is because fat32 does not support files that large.) and leave it at that. Do not pipe up in conferences or meetings because you are not the type that the company buys lunch for, and if you happen to be there at the meeting take that into consideration. Don't speak your mind because that's not what you are there for or they would have told you so. It sucks but that's the way life is. And most of all don't laugh when you are on a conference call with IT and corporate and some more important person asks a stupid question. Their job is to make money, and to outsource your job if it will be cheaper. Yeah it might be lame, but tell someone who is sitting fat and making 80k for doing non-technical work and demanding that IT do it yesterday and $20,000 under budget to do it right and you will be looking for a new job. Your argument has no weight there unless you are very special. Nod, say please and thank you, and do your job to the best of your ability and things will be "ok". Just my two bits*.
*inflation
Re:Presentation versus inside guts (Score:3, Interesting)
In my experience there can be a persistent problem where sales guys have no understanding of the product or service they're supposed to sell. Their managers know it, the engineering managers know it, executives know it, but the situation is tolerated and the sales guys are expected to keep on selling. Don't ask me why, but I've seen people tolerate that state of affairs for years as if there were no cure for it.
Re:What do you mean, Anti-business? (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it really depends on the business. Personally I work for a company who runs online communities, so you'd think the most important departments would be IT and designers (as they literally create all product the users/consumers see). In a case like ours, the marketing department should only really be deciding what features are the most important to implement, plus advertising our services.
Unfortunately, the business has fallen into the trap of offering crap services that nobody in their right mind would pay for. However, our marketing department spends all their time and money spamming, scamming, and tricking users into purchasing subscriptions (ie: 80-90% of the communications you receive from "other users", whether on our sites or external sites' forums, are actually our bots). So of course marketing with all their blackhat-style tactics rise to the top of the chain of importance from the CEO's point of view.
Man, it sucks working for a company who's only objective is how much money they can make before the end of the current month. No long-term vision whatsoever. :'(
Re:Quantitative techniques in business (Score:2, Interesting)
The suits consider IT the corporate equivalent of burger-flipping - something dirty that needs to be done, but could be done "better", "cheaper", and "faster", and preferably by interchangable, known quantities (hence the reliance on things like certification over actual skills.)
The IT people who are any good basically see the suits as people who are full of shit who couldn't hack it in a real degree, so they went and got an MBA (and likely cheated in order to get it.) And then they get promoted despite having put in zero work compared to the engineers.
Moral of the story. If you're any good, don't work for suits. Consult for them when they're desperate and you dictate all the terms, and can walk all the way to the bank laughing when their house of cards collapses (make sure to get your consulting checks cut regularly - if they start coming late or at all, you can cut your losses.)
Re:common place (Score:2, Interesting)
Well my main job is in retail (sales and just promoted to manager) but I also take care of our websites/graphic design/ad design. Everything I've done so far website wise and flyer/promo graphics has helped sales and the companies image so no one looks down on me when I'm doing tech related work.
I'm also currently trying out different groupware software to get rid of unneeded paper work (like: to do lists/daily duty lists/customer order management/etc.... This will be set up for all of our locations (6) from the same software, I showed my boss that he can have access to all of the stores at once. Put a big smile on his face because he can now remotely see what happening at all 6 locations.
Re:common place (Score:3, Interesting)
Eh. Someone offered to, ummm, give me head if I removed the spyware from her machine. And she wasn't particularly unattractive, either (probably a 7).
Although, looking back, I do believe that fixing the computer was probably just an excuse.
Management vs Labor (Score:3, Interesting)
The "tech vs biz" feuds are an extension of the conflicts between management and labor. Tech divisions, though they have their own managers, are responsible for doing the production work of the company, while the biz offices are responsible for managing the company (and, ultimately, the tech division).
The management vs labor conflict is as old as the division of labor. Tech vs biz is probably at least as old as the first person to market the inventor of the wheel's widget.
Re:What do you mean, Anti-business? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's amazing how many people just don't understand basic maths. A while ago I used to have to report on how many calls missed the grade of service in a call centre. Each line would have a % grade of service and there would be half a dozen lines. Almost every week at least 2 or 3 of the desk managers would ring me up to complain my figures were wrong because my report said line 1 had 80% GOS, line 2 had 30% but my overall GOS was 79% and not 60% like it should be. I actually had a make a tutorial spreadsheet to explain the concept of weighted percentages but 1 or 2 people even questioned the validity of that !
I don't generally have problems with the 'business' but I do often have problems with people in the business. Just this morning I have had maybe the 8th e-mail from some guy asking me to send out all our confidential customer information to some pharmacuetical company. Every time I tell him that a) we're not doing that and that b) if we did even send out the limited amount of non confidential data he still needs to tell me exactly what he wants. But he never does, each e-mail is just "Mr Gravy, How much longer will this report take, the client are nagging me now". Each time I reply telling him he needs to explain what he actually wants but so far he hasn't bothered to do that.
Re:One thing I have noticed (Score:5, Interesting)
At my company, there is a strong belief that if it ain't broke, you don't fix it.
So you basically have to wait for the customer to file a trouble ticket for you to fix something, and push a change control for approval, in order for you to fix something you knew was going to go wrong.
What we end up doing is developing the fix and keeping it in dev, until that fateful day when the user happens upon the bug. The we look all mighty because we can fix it insta-magically.
Actually, we no longer do that. We let our managers take the blame now. We say, we knew about it, and we were ready to fix it, but it was low-priority for our boss, so we never did.
Come to think of it, that's exactly how management likes it.
The answer is easier than it seems (Score:1, Interesting)
Two rules:
1 - Real World spins because of money, not gravitational forces, and businessmen control that flow of money. IE, they have the power techies have not.
2 - A techie manipulate things while a businessman manipulates people.
Conclusion: when problems occur and a techie has to defend him/herself against the businessman, usually it's the businessman who wins. This explain the frustration among techies.
But...
A techie can screw the businessman in multiple ways just by manipulating his gadgets. Just be sure not to be caught because the same energy that moves our world also fuels the justice system.
Gifted managers needed (Score:3, Interesting)
Reconciling the distinct, sometimes conflicting needs of different groups is where good managers are priceless. If you've got that kind of antipathy between your tech people and your business people, someone has been doing something wrong. Tech is supposed to _enable_ people to do their work, not get in their way. And it can be fun in and of itself, which is why many of us do it.
But they don't often pay us to have fun of our own, they want things to work well and not cost too much. As soon as your tech staff starts calling people 'lusers', and the secretaries leave things broken because it's just too much trouble to come to us for help, then our company or department should start looking for a new leader. Not just a new IT person: a new leader to help create those relationships.
RFC 1925 (Score:4, Interesting)
Your answer is in RFC 1925, point (2) 7a:
Good, fast, cheap - pick any two (you can't have all three)
As techies our instinct goes to "good and fast". Almost without thinking. Business people, on the other hand, really are the exact opposite: "cheap" is the fixed value for them, and then they pick either good or fast depending on the specific project.
The most common scenario is that the techie builds something, but isn't happy with it, rebuilds it, improves it, tests it, fixes bugs, continues on and on and on. You can see that very well in security. Techies hold entire conferences about which obscure, rarely encountered problems could under which very special circumstances provide a small chance that technology X could be circumvented.
For business people "does the job" is all they need. If there's a 0.1% chance that a hypothetical attack can go straight through, say, your firewall, a techie will consider it broken. A business person thinks "let's get an insurance, at that failure rate the premium will be very affordable".
They also apply different standards (Score:5, Interesting)
This was an important financial system, and I know that if it had not worked as required there would have been hell to pay.
Six months later someone decided to check our test data against the live configuration and found a very odd rule, giving people with worse credit histories better interest rates. We queried it and they said it was wrong but "why was the system so hard to understand".
We brought up the original specifications, page diagrams etc. given by business and showed them that it worked in exactly the way they wanted it to. The "difficult to understand" argument was never done again. In fact the whole thing was put down to "just one of those things".
The ID manager suggested that we could query the database and find out how many people were given a rate inappropriate for the risk - and maybe flag the accounts for quick follow up if they had arrears. Almost unbelievably we were told that on "under no circumstances were we to query the database for this information, as the results could be seen as unfair to the business unit concerned". This came from a board level director so we really had to comply.
Again, had an IT problem lead to people being given the wrong rates we all know the first question would have been "How many people are affected and how much money is involved?". The second would have been "who was responsible?".
I believe that the business see the IT department as a car and them as the drivers. If they take a route that leaves them crawling in traffic at 20mph its "one of those things". If the car only crawls along at 20mph its "totally unacceptable".
Re:The Dilbert Principle (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't resist, sorry; how come you used the correct spelling of 'principle' twice and then the wrong one for the rest of the post?
Tech vs. Business/Management: That's quite common. (Score:4, Interesting)
From my point of view, there's only a small number of companies where the Techs have a good relationship to the Business People or even Managers.
The main reasons are, in my oppinion, management, and respect.
As many others pointed out, the Tech doing his job best is the one you'll never see working because there are no problems with the IT infrastructure at all.
The problem is: In most companies I know or worked for, the IT departement is managed by a business man -- not by a tech. This is a fundamental (management) mistake.
Just do make it clear to everyone: Would you as business man like to discuss your great business plan with a non-business Tech, who then decides which way to go? No, of course not -- he'll hardly understand what your point is at all.
So, why do they force the Techs to discuss new hardware, network expansions and other, highly tech-related stuff with a business man? He won't understand why, won't see the connections, the big picture in the background.
The business people often tell the Techs that's part of the Tech's job to explain it in a way so the manager understands. Would you like (or even able) to explain your business plan to somebody knowing nothing about marketing and management at all? Giving him a crash course in Management/Marketing? And every time from the roots up, because next time he doesn't remember what you did talk about last time.
No, you won't. So, don't force the Techs to do it the other way around. It's useless -- you'll perhaps get a little window where you can see a part of the big picture behind, but you won't be able to see it in total.
By managing IT departements in this way, with a business man doing the decissions who has not the Tech background, you'll make a lot of false decissions. And the Techs are the ones having to deal with. No wonder they get fretted.
If you want a smooth, productive IT departement, look for a Tech with some business/management skills and help him to tighten them. Ensure that the head of the IT departement is a Tech. Because he's accepted, he has the background, and he knows what he's talking about when he talks about your IT. And give him financial responsibility. He must be the one deciding which hardware to buy.
I know a company here in Germany where the CTO and member of the board of directors at first a Tech and then business man. In the early days, he was one of the upper sysadmins. It's a big internet provider/hoster over here.
I whish this would be the common situation in most companies.
Re:common place (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you exclusively talking about tech support?
I got the impression from the question that he's talking about tech in general. In which case I can count myself. I work for $BIG_CORP as a software engineer and there's animosity here. On our side a lot of it stems from -
If our software does really, really well in the marketplace then we might get a reasonable payrise, whilst some of the guys on the business side get to retire from the profits, buy sports cars etc.
If our software does badly then there will be layoffs.
We tend to be ignored and dictated to, as if we're an inconvenience, not actually, you know, the guys that design and procude everything you goddamn sell.
We're smarter than them. In the geeky, pure-intellect, tough-maths-problem way. Many of them are overly loud, arrogant and annoying. Somehow they make more money and are always travelling places and have great cars though...
They're always telling us not to do fun techie stuff (otherwise known as innovation) in favour of endless interface tweaking and repackaging (otherwise known as making software actually usable).
From their side, we're probably moody, have over-inflated senses of entitlement and our own importance, get in the way of "corporate direction" whenever we can, mutter about unintelligible and unimportant stuff all the time, spend all our money on stupid gadgets, are usually passive-aggressive and are nearly always lazy.
Swings and roundabouts. Been the same way in every company I worked for.
IT is at fault too (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:common place (Score:3, Interesting)
You miss the point that computers are *way* more complex than anything else in common use.
There may be a time where they "just work" for the non-techies. But they "just work" already right now for me.
Instead of dumbing them down so even bigger idiots can exist, I think they should use their brains for once, or not fail at using a machine that they don't understand.
The point of this is, that if you dumb them down, you lose the power of (fully/really) using a computer.
The best example is the huge comfort boost I got from just being able to create the "glue" parts between the applications I use, when I switched to (Gentoo) Linux. (The point here is not the problems with Gentoo, but that I had to learn the internal stuff.) I finally understood the OS.
I have small scrips and hooks everywhere that finally make my life easier as computer salesman promised me for the decades where I did not really understand the computer.
An open OS, shell scripting (maybe not in bash :), DBUS, Firefox add-ons, Greasemonkey... those are miletones on way we should follow.
It's efficient, high-level, and you can quickly come up with something basic and then let it grow.
There should be a computer license that requires you to be able to script the "glue" and understand the system. (= Understanding the most basic and global concepts. Not learning every detail by heart.)
Re:They also apply different standards (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe that the business see the IT department as a car and them as the drivers.
Organizations view IT as a service - and as such just want them to fix problems. They are not viewed as part of the line operations; they're a cost center. Whether that is right or wrong is very debatable but nonetheless it is a reality. R&D is operations, fixing things whether it's a burned out light or a busted PC is service.As such, their survival and success depends on finding out what their customer needs and delivering that; as well as getting agreement on what they will do and how.
If they take a route that leaves them crawling in traffic at 20mph its "one of those things". If the car only crawls along at 20mph its "totally unacceptable".
In the first case it was their choice and error, in the second it's somebody else's fault. Guess what gets rationalized? It's no different than the IT guy saying the server went down - nothing we can do until it gets fixed. We all minimize our errors.
This was an important financial system, and I know that if it had not worked as required there would have been hell to pay.
Six months later someone decided to check our test data against the live configuration and found a very odd rule, giving people with worse credit histories better interest rates. We queried it and they said it was wrong but "why was the system so hard to understand".
If it was so important why didn't they run some real rigourous testing that would catch such flaws? Let me guess - the implementation was pushing up against the due date and in order to meet schedule the testing was cut back. Been there, done that. One of the biggest causes of such problems, in my experience, is failure to properly scope the project and realistically estimate the time needed. IT underestimates the work load, the customer pushes for an unrealistic deadline; and you get a poor result.
Re:common place (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:common place (Score:3, Interesting)
So you've never had a hard disk failure, or a problem with a CD/DVD drive?
Or sticky keys on a keyboard? Or broken pin on a laptop power connector (the pin isn't supposed to be a moving part, but it's a moving part that usually causes it to break).
Re:common place (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's how I fixed it (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:common place (Score:5, Interesting)
No offense intended, but the only people who think things are getting easier are people who don't know how they work in the first place.
Part of what I did coming into a new CIO position was simplifying the IT environment. A big component of that was stopping Windows development and moving Windows out of our server mix. The complexity of the whole Windows ecosystem adds overhead and expense without much value...except to MCSE's. The old arguments about it costing more to find qualified developers and support is just tripe. We haven't had any problems replacing our Windows-only staff and vendors at competitive local market rates and saved big on license costs.
We can also match or beat application development times in a FOSS environment. I'm sure those heavily invested in Windows development are seething to tell me how wrong I am, but I prove that every day. We're building big systems on a LAMP stack and pushing the envelope for time to market. I came from a Windows shop, I am...well, used to be...a Windows developer. It's all FUD. You don't need Windows, Windows developers, or all the overhead it takes to keep that ecosystem running in some kind of decent shape. You can deliver enterprise services at a fraction of the cost and at competitive turn-around times. Simplify your environment and you'll save yourself a lot of money and stress.
Re:common place (Score:5, Interesting)
Some time ago, there was a news article on how an aluminum smelter plant had signed a long-term contract for electricity supply at a bargain low rate. When the cost of gas went up, the management found out that they could make more money reselling their electricity than they could by smelting aluminum.
Re:One thing I have noticed (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, since I was not running around all day fixing things it meant I was not doing anything. He never saw the preventative maintenance and testing that I performed that kept it running well.
That doesn't only apply to IT. I heard a similar story about the maintenance staff at a manufacturing company.
Back in the 80s the president of the company went on an unscheduled tour of the plant (a very rare occasion). While on the tour he comes upon two maintenance workers standing by their tool carts having cups of coffee and chatting.
Furious that the two workers weren't fixing something at that particular moment the president asks, "What are you doing?"
One of the maintenance workers replies, "Well, the line is running perfectly, and since it's running we have to wait until the operators go on break to do any preventative maintenance."
The president of the company then goes back to his office with a great idea to save some money. Since these two maintenance workers are standing around, he clearly has too many of them. So he proceeds to fire half of the maintenance staff.
Ten years later, the board of directors notices that the profits are decreasing substantially. So, they fire the president and hire a new one. After 6 months the new president has to make a report to the board. This is what he found:
We noticed that our sales went down so we performed as survey and that indicated that our sales were down due to a perceived decline in quality of our product.
We also noticed our manufacturing costs have grown exponentially in the past ten years.
After speaking with some of the foreman and the manufacturing engineering staff, it appears that the uptime of the line has declined. Ten years ago, the uptime was 92% and today it's 63%. Additionally, the majority of the tooling can no longer produce parts within the designed specifications, sending the scrap rate up to 42%. This means that our plant is only 37% efficient. They all cite a lack of preventative maintenance as the cause.
It appears ten years ago, the president of the company fired half of the maintenance staff. As a result, not all of the preventative maintenance was performed as required. This decision has saved us, $500,000 on average annually for the past ten years. However, due to the increase in the scrap rate, the quality control department has increased their inspection staff. This has cost the company $500,000 on average annually over the past ten years.
This decision to cut back on maintenance has cost the company 1 billion dollars in down time last year alone. This figure does not include the decline in sales, and increase in warranty claims, and scrap rate due to lower product quality. In total, this decision has cost the company 10 Billion dollars, last year alone.
In order to get this company back to where it was ten years ago, the entire production line will have to be retooled. This has been quoted out by several companies, and is expected to exceed $900 million.
Even with these changes, the damage that has been done to our company's reputation is irreparable, and we may never recover.
Re:Business as usual (Score:2, Interesting)
Make no mistake, I am not against business, profits, or any such thing. I actually run my own business. However, when shareholders enter the picture, things change. Appeasing shareholders become the end-all of the company, instead of profits flowing back the employees that make it (essentially, a pyramid scheme). Add to that the massive size and power, these large corporations have the potential, in a heartbeat, to either uplift or drag down humanity. Due to their "bean-counting" nature, it's generally the latter.... at least without some form of regulation to prevent it. (Think 50 to 100 years ago... our cities would be worse than Beijing if pollution ordinances never went into effect. I live in North Country, and back in those days, the snow was black, not white.)
On the other hand, in my business, I know my actions directly effect my employees, my environment, and myself, and thus I make balanced choices that will benefit them all. I'm not tied to some nameless "shareholder" that demands I make profits increase by squeezing anywhere I can. Not as efficient? Maybe. Better quality product, service and employees? You betcha! And I sleep well at night knowing I am successful because I have helped others become successful.