back to article You want SaaS? Don't bother, darling, your kind can't afford it

"That member is the wrong way around," confides the gym receptionist in hushed tones, nodding towards a middle-aged fellow ambling into the cardio room. I stare after him, trying to guess how his member might be incorrectly attached. Dressed unfashionably and, I suspect, quite accidentally in a sleeveless side-boob vest, split …

  1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    "Inexplicably, everyone at the gym knows me as "the computer expert" even though I took great pains when I first joined to describe myself as a "tech journalist"."

    Never, ever in a context like this use a term like "tech" or "engineer" or something like that. You'll be the guy that can fix everything, from cars to laptops.

    I'm too old to get away with "art student" anymore; these days I tell people I'm a civil servant*, which is not that far from the truth.

    * Pro tip: choose or make up an obscure department that no-one ever has any business with. Statistics or internal auditing is good.

    1. magickmark
      Devil

      * Pro tip: choose or make up an obscure department that no-one ever has any business with. Statistics or internal auditing is good.

      Wow that exactly what I was going to say and what I actually do! I actually am a 'civil servant' now and work in an obscure department (R&D and Innovation) and my job does include an element of statistical analysis and auditing data so I normally waffle on about this aspect of my job (ignoring anything interesting or useful) until people move away.

      I learnt along time ago to never tell people I was an IT Consultant or else I ended up being expected to solve every bodies computer issues.

      One trick I used to use when self employed was to keep business cards on me all the time and when anyone asked me an IT question in a social situation I'd whip out a card write a ridiculous hourly rate on the back and told them to call me in the morning.

      This led of course to one of two situations, I never heard from them again or they called me and had to pay a slightly silly amount of money for help/advice. I was equally happy with either outcome.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "I do all sorts ..."

        "these days I tell people I'm a civil servant" -- allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        "* Pro tip: choose or make up an obscure department" -- magicmark

        As a consultant I find that you can usually use the business of the current client as an honest response that does not invite further questions; e.g. I'm in healthcare / insurance / logistics (a great cover-all) / utilities / defence (also good for discouraging questions).

        Best one I had was, when leaving the house, suited and booted for my 1 day a week in the office and being snarkily asked by the cowboy builders next door (who, having no clue about working from home, had assumed I was some kind of layabout student), what I did for a living, I was able to say, quite honestly, "Debt Recovery"

        For the remainder of the time they spent bodging the neighbours' roof, both me and my wife were the recipients of immediately increased respect.

        EDIT: I obviously never, ever, tell anyone I work for CSC, because people always ask if I can get them a discount sofa.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Mark 85
      Devil

      For more than a few years, as a former Marine, I'd tell folks who asked "I'm a trained killer. Why do you ask? Do you have train that needs killing?". Seems to have worked. Never got asked to fix their PC.

      1. macjules

        I get sick of the standard response to "I'm in I.T." being, "Oh, can you fix my computer then?". I gleefully got my revenge on someone at a party recently after he posed that question, when I asked "What do you do then?". His response was, "I'm the managing director of a division of Rentokill.", to which I replied (and I had been saving up for something like this), "That's great, all our drains and gutters need clearing out and I think we might have mice in the basement, when can you come round and sort that out?"

        Strange how he then said that he could espy a colleague of his and just had to go and have a chat with him.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      This works

      I tell everyone I meet that I'm a complete and utter wanker. Totally true, and it stops the bloody stupid questions and twatty small talk in an instant. I really am a totally unlikeable tool, let me assure you.

      1. Myvekk

        Re: This works

        "I tell everyone I meet that I'm a complete and utter wanker. Totally true, and it stops the bloody stupid questions and twatty small talk in an instant. I really am a totally unlikeable tool, let me assure you."

        --------

        But an honest one, at least!

    5. stu 4

      nice

      My solution presented itself when I fully moved to macs in 2009 (for home use). Now I simply made it clear that I 'knew nothing about windoze anymore...but if they got a mac I could help them'.

      this achieved two things:

      1. I stopped getting bugged by friends and family, and worse - pimped out by friends and family to people I'd never met ("oh my son/friend/nephew is 'into computer' i'll get him to fix it) as they know seemed to understand it was 'windows' and I didn't understand that.

      2. the odd one bought a mac, and problems mostly disappears (shit software they'd downloaded cause windows didn't edit videos, whatever - mac built in, backups - built in, virus protection - not needed,etc, etc). And the odd problem that did occur I frankly didn't mind helping em now they'd seen the light.

      I admit this did backfire with my uncle though who couldn't adapt to osx, hated everything being different and blames me for him spending 1500 quid on an imac. however on the upside, as he blames me - he still doesn't ask me to fix problems - so still a result - yeh!

    6. Jeffrey Nonken

      I just tell them the truth: I write firmware for a airplane simulator company. Most think that's cool enough to stop there. If they ask what that entails, the explanation leaves them glassy-eyed enough to never want to ask me a question ever again ever.

      OTOH if they know what firmware is it often means a pleasant techie conversation will follow. Win-win.

  2. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    Good save by Mr Teh-ah-tim-eh there then...

  3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Wrong way round

    "Curiously, the offenders are always insurance companies"

    Some insurance company phone erk agent insisted to me that my wife's birthday was 5th of June not 6th of May. It seemed beyond his comprehension that a married man could survive one year's getting his wife's birthday wrong or that someone in his company could have entered a 6 and a 5 the wrong way round.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Wrong way round

      Or possibly not notice that their US-supplied system still had the factory default locale...

      1. Allan George Dyer
        Black Helicopters

        Re: Wrong way round

        Or they changed from the default locale, but it silently resets on every update... or possibly, whenever it feels like it.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Wrong way round

        "their US-supplied system still had the factory default locale."

        I think they'd notice if they couldn't enter dates later than the 12th of any month.

        1. VinceH

          Re: Wrong way round

          '"their US-supplied system still had the factory default locale."

          I think they'd notice if they couldn't enter dates later than the 12th of any month.'

          Depends on the 'brains' (and I use that term laughingly) behind the software.

          I have the misfortune of having to use some cloud accounts software, developed by a British firm, and (AFAIK) all the customers are in the UK. Its date parsing is quite comprehensive - but it does suffer Overpuddlian Date Syndrome when entering purely numerical dates.

          So I can enter 30th April, and that would be recognised without a problem. I can enter 30/4 and it'll recognise that as well. 5th April will also be correctly recognised - but 5/4 becomes 4th May.

          Which means that just because it gets it wrong when the first number is 1-12, doesn't mean it won't work for dates where the number is higher than 12.

        2. Wensleydale Cheese

          Re: Wrong way round

          "I think they'd notice if they couldn't enter dates later than the 12th of any month."

          Which could equally mean that in any given month, data entered during the first 12 days could be wrong.

    2. macjules

      Re: Wrong way round

      One year? I would not see the day out.

  4. Huw D

    When NOT to get a date format wrong

    Asked for a tattoo design when I was in Austin, Texas. Simple thing. A date in a banner.

    The artist asks "What date?"

    "4th November 2016"

    *scribbles away*

    "How's that?"

    "Mate, that says the 11th of April... Can you do it in words..."

  5. Mage Silver badge

    It doesn't make sense

    "Like most people with small businesses, I run my complete accounts and invoicing system in the cloud and it costs me barely £15 a month."

    The market leader charges more like £40 a month for what used to be a £90 package.

    Indeed ANY small business would be mad to do that, be at the mercy of Internet connectivity and the "trustiness" of the Cloud vendor (Much less than 1970s vendors on mainframes) and paying rent forever.

    £180 a year

    £2,000+ over 10 years.

    Add the need for backups etc too.

    No, Cloud for small business makes no sense except for a website or ecommerce online. Subscriptions are a rip off.

    Indeed plenty of small businesses can't get fixed Internet, or even reliable mobile!

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: It doesn't make sense

      No, Cloud for small business makes no sense except for a website or ecommerce online. Subscriptions are a rip off.

      That is a ludicrously absolute statement.

      We're a small business. We use MS Office 365. Why? Because it's cheap. £12 a month per user. For which we no longer have to buy copies of office, or deal with upgrades and everyone having different versions. In the past it was new office with new computer. We also get an Exchange server with mobile access run by someone competent. I can't run a server, well I'm sure I could I just never have. I don't have the time, and I'd run it vaguely OK, not well. Anyway our office has crap connectivity - so if we put a server in it and the internet goes down, we're screwed. Now we can just go and work from home - or use a backup 3G router. We've also got backups on each computer. As well as MS doing it.

      If we had particularly sensitive email, then we'd have to do it in-house. But the balance of risks tells me that MS are less likely to screw-up than us, and we've got ways to recover from screw-ups anyway.

      We also use remote CRM, which I'm less happy about the robustness of. It would cost us more time, money and effort to recover from a disaster to or the loss of that supplier. But again, the costs are less than running it ourselves, and because only one of us is 100% office based - we'd need to locate a server somewhere not here. And then run it. And running your own infrastructure is not risk free either.

      So on balance Cloud is cheaper and better than what we can do for ourselves. Short of spending half the profits on IT - which is probably more in one year than it would cost us to recover from both MS and our CRM supplier going titsup simultaneously.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It doesn't make sense

        "Office 365"

        Do a little test. Send an email with people in the Bcc. See if it arrives with all the Bcc addresses exposed to each recipient. That's what happens using my Microsoft provided Saas Exchange email service via Namesco.

        1. Jonathan Richards 1
          Unhappy

          Re: It doesn't make sense

          > arrives with all the Bcc addresses exposed to each recipient

          Crap :(

          That's a failure mode that'll get you into hot water at the Office of the UK Information Commissioner.

        2. brotherelf

          Re: It doesn't make sense

          Ah yes, they don't seem to bother with seldom-used border-case headers like BCC and Reply-To anymore.

        3. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: It doesn't make sense

          Just done that test. None of the BCC recepients were revealed. Is there some specific condition that has to occur for this to happen, or is it a bug that's now been fixed?

        4. TotallyInfo

          Re: It doesn't make sense

          "Send an email with people in the Bcc" - urm maybe you should have gone to Microsoft themselves then because that certainly doesn't happen on Office 365. Anybody charging you for a service that does that needs a nice legal looking letter sending to the CEO and CFO.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It doesn't make sense

        "We're a small business. We use MS Office 365. Why? Because it's cheap. £12 a month per user. For which we no longer have to buy copies of office, or deal with upgrades and everyone having different versions."

        personally I use Libre Office on Linux. That's even cheaper ...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It doesn't make sense

      Market leader by revenue maybe, but in terms of well written software. I think not.

  6. SkippyBing

    'Alistair Dabbs is a freelance technology tart, juggling IT journalism, editorial training and digital publishing'

    I thought you said you were a Tech Journalist?

    1. Franco

      That's Alaster Dabs

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        I thought it was Aleister Dabbs?

    2. Alistair Dabbs

      >> I thought you said you were a Tech Journalist?

      I can be whatever I want to be. I learnt that off Spongebob Squarepants.

    3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      technology tart / technology journalist.

      What's the difference between tart and journalist? Other than there are presumably things a tart won't do for any money

      1. Montreal Sean

        @Yet Another Anonymous coward

        "technology tart / technology journalist.

        What's the difference between tart and journalist? Other than there are presumably things a tart won't do for any money"

        Tarts dress better.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Edit record? Wrong name?

    Did you try "Alistair'); DROP TABLE Customers;--" ?

    1. Myvekk

      Re: Edit record? Wrong name?

      Ah yes! Beware the 'Exploits of a Mom'!

      https://xkcd.com/327/

  8. Jonathan Richards 1

    'semi-automation using Zapier'

    Thank you, Alistair, I didn't know you could do that. My concern with building business-critical support applications using web apps and Zapier would be that one is at the mercy of each one of the web suppliers. If the "glue" depends on several web APIs not changing, then there's going to be a day when your gym owner's conglomeration of apps won't do what he needs and expects, and he'll be up the creek. At least his four hundred quid purchase is a sunk cost, and it'll go on working until it doesn't. If he's wise in line with his muscle mass, he'll have a sinking fund and data backups to replace it when that happens. I haven't looked hard at Zapier to see what the free offering can do, but I see that a premium subscription is 20USD per month (close to £20 sterling, these days). So that's over £200 p.a., just for the glue.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: 'semi-automation using Zapier'

      The free version supports a handful of two-step workflows, which is all my local micro-gym needs. But don't tell him I said so.

  9. Electron Shepherd

    Ah, the lure of "the cloud"...

    "I run my complete accounts and invoicing system in the cloud and it costs me barely £15 a month. The reason it's relatively cheap is because the SaaS developer is freed from the ball and chain of a single annual update schedule, huge physical distribution costs and the worrisome drop-off of the sales curve after each new release.

    I think you mean:

    "I run my complete accounts and invoicing system in the cloud and it costs me barely £15 a month. The reason it's relatively cheap is because the SaaS developer is freed from having to develop any new features, since now I'm locked in, and can't get my data out again in any sort of usable format. Each month, paying the £15 is cheaper than dealing with the cost and hassle of migrating to a one-off cost accounting package that would be much cheaper in the long run."

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Ah, the lure of "the cloud"...

      Not at all. I can export all data to XLS, CSV and Sage. My provider adds features frequently and has an API that links into other SaaS products from other developers.

  10. Teiwaz

    'No, never 'tech' anything

    I usually just say 'COBOL or Mainframe Programmer' to any job title queries, any following IT questions can be replied with an approximation of:

    'This new learning amazes me Sir Bedevere, explain again how sheeps bladders can be employed to prevent earthquakes'

    Carrying around a Nokia N900 helps too. People assume I don't know anything about modern IT and don't bother me, a lot of people seem to think it's a 90's phone...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 'No, never 'tech' anything

      That works for me as well. I refer them to the teenager as "I don't understand this wireless, apps, Windows 10 crap." Which is mostly true ;-}.

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

        Re: 'No, never 'tech' anything

        I used to tell people who know that I'm in IT that I work on Unix and that I don't do Windows(especially W10) because it is a virus and spyware.

        Yes I know this isn't totally true but for the IT Illiterati it is good enough to get them out of my hair and avoid the 'can you fix my Internet?'

        Now that I'm retired I still refuse to have anything to do with Windows but it is harder to fob the requests for help off.

        A number of people want to get help from me via Facebook. The look on their faces is wonderful to see when I tell them that I don't do social media. They probably think I'm a bit odd (don't answer that!) but it does help to stop the requests for help.

    2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: 'No, never 'tech' anything

      Old Nokia Asha, looks like a poor man's blackberry. Whenever someone says I should use WhattsApp or Facebook etc I just hold it up and say "sorry, my phone can't do this".

      (That there's a tablet in the backpack is nobody's business.)

      1. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

        Re: 'No, never 'tech' anything

        Ericsson R520m is also good for trolling. Besides being a bloody good phone.

        Up next - the John's Phone.

    3. Admiral Grace Hopper

      Re: 'No, never 'tech' anything

      I use the same approach, which has the benefit of being true, if not completely so. When asked if I don't use Windows at all, the entirely truthful response is, "Only if I'm being paid to". This tends to pre-empt the inevitable follow-up questions.

  11. A K Stiles
    Pint

    Gym subscription model

    Surely you charge an initial £200 set up fee and then £70 per month for a minimum 24 months, for the basic software package and then if you want to do anything fancy (like run a report or send a mailing) you need to upgrade your subscription to £100 a month, oh and your minimum contract term just renewed to 24 months from now...

    (icon is the only weight lifting I try to do repeatedly)

  12. Montreal Sean

    Insurance companies

    My insurance company managed to spell my family name correctly in part one of my forms, and then incorrectly in part two.

    Took several months to correct, as each time they make a change they send out new documents with the corrected info. Each time they managed to fix one part and screw up the other.

    Never caused any problems with.my claims though.

  13. VinceH

    Optional

    "Like most people with small businesses, I run my complete accounts and invoicing system in the cloud and it costs me barely £15 a month."

    As someone whose 'day job' is in that field, I dispute this. Not that you run your accounts in the cloud, obviously - that "most people with small businesses" do.

    I've seen a survey by a cloud accounts provider which basically asked business owners if they used a cloud product (any cloud product, don't show me the cloud product) - worded such that if they used just Dropbox, the correct answer was 'yes' - and most probably do use at least something, so most would have answered yes.

    The published results were worded slightly differently, leading people to infer most used cloud-based accounts.

  14. Grunchy Silver badge

    19.5 kg W00t!

    That is mighty impressive, congratulations!

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like