Hi Tom, Thanks for the suggestions, but I assure you, I have had many, many conversations with him about this over these past 15 years I've been managing his systems.
On 10/1/2014 9:03 AM, Tom Davies <tomc...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi :) > I think probably the best way to handle it is to arrange a meeting with > your boss. Make sure it's a proper meeting rather than just trying to > catch him/her "on the fly" while he/she is busy dealing with other stuff. > > > Apologise profusely for having tried to save the company x amount of > money! > That you did so by trying to avoid the needed upgrade to MS Office > 2013/365. Explain that you have put tons of your own time into saving > the company money in this way. Let him/her know that the office workers > are now demanding that the company buy in MS Office 2013/365 at a cost > of x. > > Let him/her know that MS products typically run into many problems when > they are first released but that most of those have probably been fixed > by now. Let him/her know that by delaying the cost you have ensured > that the company should run into far fewer problems with their purchase > than they would have done if they had just spent the money back when MS > Office 2013/365 was initially released. > > Maybe point out that there still will be problems because each version > of MS Office has problems reading some files from any previous versions > and that will continue to be a problem as each new version of MS Office > needs to be bought. Maybe follow-up by saying that converting documents > to LibreOffice only suffers that problem the one time and that future > versions of LibreOffice are built to ensure that old files can be read > > Maybe say that the whole exercise to save the company x amount seems to > have created tensions with colleagues and been disheartening and taken > up a lot of your own time and that for those reasons you would rather > not be involved with installing MS Office 2013/365. > > > > Basically wash your hands of it and point out that your motives were > good but that it was tooo much of an uphill fight that you are not happy > to continue with. It would help to know the licensing cost, x. For > 2013 i've heard around $500/machine for the version with Access in it or > for 365 it's probably a monthly figure. Companies can often get a > discount and get a "volume" license. > > DON'T offer to share your research on this! Just make it sound like you > have heard a rumour that it costs roughly x. Picking the right version > of MS Office is notoriously difficult and likely to run into problems. > Whichever version you (or anyone else) choose is likely to be the wrong > one and incurr extra, hidden costs = if it's you that did the choosing > or recommending then they might think it was you deliberately sabotaging > the project so make sure it's someone else that is highly visibly to > blame. > > Similarly with installing it. it's likely to be a lot more of a > struggle than they probably realise and is likely to over-run both in > time taken and costs. So, again make sure you are visibly distanced > from it. Try not to help in any way to avoid getting the blame when > they make mistakes! If they need information then deliver it to your > boss for your boss to hand on to whoever is doing the installs. > > Hopefully they'll need to get some external consultants in to do it, and > as is typical in the Window world those consultants will be tooo > arrogant to ask for any information or help. > > > Maybe at the end of the exercise arrange another meeting with your boss > to talk about talking back routine administration of the MS Office > systems and just express amazement at just how high the costs were, that > you had been trying to save the company from! > > > It might be worth asking a lawyer's advice about refusing to do certain > parts of what might be in your employment contract = there might be > justifiable excuses. Perhaps time to take a holiday? > > > Sorry this is not particularly useful! I know you have worked hard at > this and now find yourself in an untenable situation so i hope you are > able to work out a way of freeeing yourself and maybe gain a lot of > respect from your boss and maybe from the other workers too. > Regards from > Tom :) -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
