Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue
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As for a bench tech - that was mostly tongue in cheek. I mean when I'm consulting somewhere for something like this, sure I'm willing to spend my $150+/hr cost unboxing if you want me to - but normally someone at the office has it unboxed with all paperwork/cables, etc sitting there for me to install. Even if I do have to unbox it, that only adds 10 mins. I typically takes me less than 1 hour to setup a printer from unbox to GPO finished.
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@Dashrender and your time to res arch and purchase? Then you time at each user getting it to show and setting default
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@Dashrender said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@coliver said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@Dashrender said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
When I worked for a consulting company 15 years ago, a tech was sent out to a client's site to install a network printer. The printer itself didn't have a network port, so they had to use a JetDirect box.
The original tech went out and spent two days trying to get it to work and failed, he then elicited help from another tech, who after another day also couldn't get it to work. Day four they ask a third tech who comes in and has it installed in about 20 mins.
What should that client be billed?
I can tell you that all three techs submitted their billing, and the consulting company sent a bill for 24.5 hours of billing to the client. This was north of $3000.
The client demanded a meeting and refused to pay it. I don't know what the ultimate billing amount was, but it wasn't the full bill.
Why wouldn't the customer be billed in full? I get that $3,000 is a lot to install a printer. But if there were existing issues, either with the location, the hardware itself, or some knowledge of the infrastructure that wasn't know, that needed three techs then the billing would make sense. If this was internal IT then they would have payed a lot more for the troubleshooting time and the time/money it would have taken to go to an outside vendor (or support) to set it up anyway.
In some cases I would definitely agree with that - but in this case, the first two techs where just unknowledgeable in almost anything, and either couldn't google, wouldn't google or were just wasting time. Any person who knew how to install JetDirect boxes could have had it up in 30 mins. The first two just failed at the whole process (ultimately one was fired and the other quit before being fired, and left IT).
If your description is correct, you are saying that the issue was that they were trying to bill for time not actually spent doing the job. That's very different than the time necessary or just taken to do the job.
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@Dashrender said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@scottalanmiller said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
This is where "under the hood" transparency can be a bad thing.
I wasn't in the meeting, nor did I ever see the billing statement, so I'm not sure how much transparency there was in this billing situation.
I believe that the client mostly refused to pay for it because it should cost 10x as much to install a printer as it does to buy it.
Now of course we all know that installation can sometimes be more expensive than the purchase itself, but I think must of us also agree that's not generally the case for a printer.Lots of things cost 10x to install what they cost to buy. A printer is easily $50 and installation if there is any complexity is easily $500. How did they determine how much installation should cost?
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@JaredBusch said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@Dashrender actually a printer should almost always cost more to install the cost to buy because they are actually that cheap to buy
It cost more just to show up than it normally costs to buy a printer
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@Dashrender said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
As for a bench tech - that was mostly tongue in cheek. I mean when I'm consulting somewhere for something like this, sure I'm willing to spend my $150+/hr cost unboxing if you want me to - but normally someone at the office has it unboxed with all paperwork/cables, etc sitting there for me to install. Even if I do have to unbox it, that only adds 10 mins. I typically takes me less than 1 hour to setup a printer from unbox to GPO finished.
One hour is more than the cost of most printers today (desktop ones.) And if you include unboxing time and such, you easily have another hour just looking for cables, clearing desk space, etc.
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I wish I could charge $150 for unpacking and setting up a printer....
My god... I'd only do that all day...
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@DustinB3403 said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
I wish I could charge $150 for unpacking and setting up a printer....
My god... I'd only do that all day...
That's what Best Buy does, all day long.
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@scottalanmiller Yeah, best buy, they can't even pick the correct RAM for new laptops that they are selling!
Also it's the business charging it, not the individual. I was referring to me charging that directly. No middle man.
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@DustinB3403 said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@scottalanmiller Yeah, best buy, they can't even pick the correct RAM for new laptops that they are selling!
Also it's the business charging it, not the individual. I was referring to me charging that directly. No middle man.
It's always the middle man, though. No tech charges $150.
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@scottalanmiller said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@DustinB3403 said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@scottalanmiller Yeah, best buy, they can't even pick the correct RAM for new laptops that they are selling!
Also it's the business charging it, not the individual. I was referring to me charging that directly. No middle man.
It's always the middle man, though. No tech charges $150.
That is why I said "I wish I could charge $150".
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@scottalanmiller said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@Dashrender said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@scottalanmiller said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
This is where "under the hood" transparency can be a bad thing.
I wasn't in the meeting, nor did I ever see the billing statement, so I'm not sure how much transparency there was in this billing situation.
I believe that the client mostly refused to pay for it because it should cost 10x as much to install a printer as it does to buy it.
Now of course we all know that installation can sometimes be more expensive than the purchase itself, but I think must of us also agree that's not generally the case for a printer.Lots of things cost 10x to install what they cost to buy. A printer is easily $50 and installation if there is any complexity is easily $500. How did they determine how much installation should cost?
I have yet to meet a $50 printer that isn't trash. Love to hear of some!
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@travisdh1 said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@scottalanmiller said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@Dashrender said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@scottalanmiller said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
This is where "under the hood" transparency can be a bad thing.
I wasn't in the meeting, nor did I ever see the billing statement, so I'm not sure how much transparency there was in this billing situation.
I believe that the client mostly refused to pay for it because it should cost 10x as much to install a printer as it does to buy it.
Now of course we all know that installation can sometimes be more expensive than the purchase itself, but I think must of us also agree that's not generally the case for a printer.Lots of things cost 10x to install what they cost to buy. A printer is easily $50 and installation if there is any complexity is easily $500. How did they determine how much installation should cost?
I have yet to meet a $50 printer that isn't trash. Love to hear of some!
Exactly - Heck, printers much under $300 have been trash in my experience. Though there has been the occasional inkjet that worked for a while.
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@Dashrender I have been using this lately for small office main copier and / or workgroup copier in larger offices.
HP Laserjet Pro M477fdn All-in-One Color Printer, (CF378A)
$380 on Amazon.
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@JaredBusch said in Ripping the bandaid off of the Sunk Cost Fallacy Issue:
@Dashrender I have been using this lately for small office main copier and / or workgroup copier in larger offices.
HP Laserjet Pro M477fdn All-in-One Color Printer, (CF378A)
$380 on Amazon.
Those look nice. I've had decent luck with HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 series, and now the Epson EcoTanks. The EcoTank refills are just amazingly inexpensive compared to anything else around except the other printer models you have to mod to add the tanks to.
