Re: [FT] Robot workersRe: Why superships cost more per mass

--- Roger Books <books@mail.state.fl.us> wrote:
...
> Well, my example was programming, back in the early
> 90s I had a solo
> business doing custom programming for private
> companies.  I was
> doing fairly well writing databases with easy user
> interfaces and
> nice printouts.  I bid on, and won, a job with the
> state of Florida
> that I expected to take me 160 hours or so.  My bid
> was an order of
> magnitude lower than the next bidder!!!  It turns
> out dealing with
> the government is a whole different beast than
> dealing with individuals
> or private companies.  A year of later I finally
> finished and was 
> paid.  It worked out to about 20 cents an hour. 
> Dealing with
> government is a whole different animal than private
> companies.
> 
I'm a programmer too, though I have always worked
for government contractors (well almost) after
getting out of the military. Doing software for
the government is even worse than building them
a hammer or toilet seat ;-) because when someone
is buying custom software they want it exactly how
they want it -- and that seems to change week to
week. The added complexity you get by a continual
series of new government faces, none of which 
really know what they want, continually demanding
changes and modifications can be a nightmare if
it's not carefully controlled.

Also with government jobs, you often have political
considerations (like you work for the Koreans and
they demand a Korean company be involved so you
get a whole bunch of people to work with you didn't
hire and can't control and who question your every
move). Boy don't get me started, but the point is
that often the road to the end of the project is not
one you'd choose if you were looking for the most
efficient, cheapest route.

So like you say it's expensive working for the
government, even indirectly, but it seems much the
same whether I'm working on a training system for
a destroyer or a combat system for a defense network.
The biggest ship we ever worked on while I worked at
Litton was the LHD-1. We did the CSTS (combat 
simulation test system).

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail