And that one would be me, evidently. I learned today that my purchase of a Macintosh (or perhaps more accurately, the way I did it) forced the creation of a new computer purchasing policy to make sure purchases are more tightly controlled.
The fact of the matter is, I was able to take a handwritten purchase order into the University Bookstore and buy a 2 * 1.25 GHz PowerMac with 17 inch flatscreen monitor and some software on the strength of that document. I drove there and back myself, and it occured to me that I should have charged for mileage. I set it up myself (the difficulty of that mustn’t be overrated) and that was that.
So while I agree that my methods were less than forthright and open, I’m not pleased to have an even more constrained workplace be my legacy. But it’s well-known I would never have gotten one otherwise, even though the University supports the platform and the Bookstore sells them. The fiefdom in which I work is declared to be off-limits to anything but the Leading Brand. I gave it a try and found it didn’t work for me: my observation after a particularly bad spate of crashes and general uselessness was that using Windows in a multidisciplinary way was like driving nails with your bare hands — bloody, painful, and unproductive.
Oh, well, religious wars are unwinnable: better to go along as best as you can without compromising too much.
The conflict for me is that as a probationary employee I feel compelled to prove myself as a valuable asset but it’s not easy to do that with uncooperative tools. Do others in my position have the same problems?I don’t know, but I doubt their expectations of themselves are as high. Not to be arrogant, but all I heard when I arrived was how unsophisticated everything was and how I was welcome to bring my tech experience to bear on that. But as I’ve learned, it’s hard to buck the system, even in small ways, without hurting someone’s feelings.