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June 08, 2004
No more oil
Nath called this morning to say she'd taken her car to the garage. Bricali diagnosed one problem quickly: he found no oil in the motor. He lent Nath his courtesy car, and told her something about how using cheap, no-brand motor oil might have caused this. (And I don't think Bricali had to study psychology to make that sales call.)
Coincidence: This happened once before with the same car. Coincidence: Nath's father and two brothers like cars so much, they rebuilt a late 60s Matra, including the parts, by hand in their garage. Their sister, an ESFJ, does not check the oil, even after the little red lights go off indicating the problem.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance comes to mind as an explanation. Sun sold so long almost directly to engineers. Now we're selling to the CIO or CEO. These guys pay someone else to check their oil for them preemptively, but they no longer want to pay very much.
On the one hand, you can understand how Leary thought of H.O.M.E.s while sitting in solitary confinement at the bottom of Folsom Prison. On the other hand, you realize how difficult we may have (not just Sun, everybody) selling software to people who don't want involvement with technology.
Posted by Mark at June 8, 2004 09:41 AM