Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite writers. He is brief yet concise and somehow always manages to be entertaining. Before all of his success writing books, he was just a writer for the New Yorker. One of his best columns he wrote for the New Yorker was titled Million-Dollar Murray. Basically, it tells the story of a homeless man in Reno. Gladwell explains that between police and hospital coverage, society paid more than $1,000,000 to cover Murray's homelessness. He did the math and realized it would be cheaper to hire a full-time social worker for the homeless man and to provide the him with a place to stay than it was to allow him to be homeless. Homelessness, he declared, was cheaper to solve than to manage.
So, where does the printer repair man IT expert fit in with Murray the homeless man?
Well I overheard a co-worker who locked himself out of the network. So of course the first person he goes to is our LAN expert. Not surprising, the LAN guy couldn't help. Although he is an "IT Guy," he was sadly, not the right kind. But he did point him in the direction of the network help desk that assists with people who lock themselves out. I listened to the co-worker and the network guy go back and forth for more than two hours trying to reset the password. We'll call my co-worker Murray for this example. I'm pretty sure this was not the first time he has locked himself out. I'm pretty sure, because less than a week earlier, he did the exact same thing. So Murray had easily spent about $300 of his own salary + another $300 of the network guy's time. Considering he currently does this on a bi-weekly basis, I think it might be cheaper to hire a full-time employee to follow him around every day to make sure he doesn't forget his password! He may not be a million-dollar Murray, but he is on his way!