Watt's Laws
for
Corporate Charity

          When you're a community net, you often have to go that extra mile to get things done. One of commonly occurring tasks facing members of the hard-working and under-appreciated CCN Technical Committee is to attempt to solicit donations of specific hardware as it becomes needed.

          Recently after a series of power disruptions the need for a UPS, or backup power supply, was driven home and Tech team volunteers fanned out into the community looking for one. This can be an educational experience, as Chris Watt writes here:

          I have yet to hear anything from <DELETED>. I'm beginning to think that the standard configuration of large corporations is:

1. Anyone you can talk to does not have the authority to do what you want, but can give you someone else's email address.

2. Anyone who is supposed to have the authority to help has a personal secretary who is required to ignore or lose your first two attempts at communication.

3. Any such person that you succeed in contacting can (at best) be expected to give you more contact information.

4. Anyone who actually has the authority to do what you want is far too important to waste his/her time talking to you.

          Anyhow, I suspect this will go the same way as my last attempt and in a week or so I'll get a "we're a good corporate citizen and here's a free copy of our catalog" form letters.