Ed Murphy did a great job of summing up the work that I do. Every answer that comes out of my mouth is “it depends” or “let me look into that for you.” I don’t want to be a weasel, but at the same time, I am deathly afraid of committing to something that I’ll be asked to deliver.
You desperately want to avoid getting locked into a fixed figure because you still have no real idea how complex the problem your being asked to solve is, but that is what the client and the others are asking for.
Unfortunately, Ed has been the recipient of many of our waffles. (Ed: You never did get that document about converting from Unix/Solaris/Red Hat to SUSE Linux)
For some reason the IT Services delivery process reminds me of my brief experience shoveling pig manure in upstate NewYork during the rainy season. You need the willpower and perseverance to shovel pig manure for as long as it takes to get the job done. “Done” is a relative term of course, because there is always more pig manure and mud left to shovel.
