[thr0wawayf00]

Somebody screwed up in the sales process then, either on the installer or vendor side. It's not acceptable to request a system in an unsupported configuration like this unless he was explicitly told beforehand "this isn't a supported configuration and we'll build it for you as long as you understand that".

[throwawaysleep]

In every company I have worked with, sales lies to get people to sign. It is a profession for naturally dishonest people.

[MattPalmer1086]

A company I used to work for had an interesting solution to this.

There was an internal market, and all services used had to be paid for. Sales people could keep everything after paying the company a cut and all the costs of delivering what they promised the client.

So if they over promised to get a sale, it all came out of their personal profit. Seemed to work quite well.

[throwoutway]

How does that worked when delivery/implementations take months or years?

[MattPalmer1086]

I'm not clear on the details. It was over 30 years ago and I wasn't a salesman. I was busy automating their warehouse systems, but I'd see the brand new Porsches pulling into the car park!

The entire company was structured as a set of internal markets though. Never seen anyone else do this.

[hinkley]

You’ve never worked for “that guy”? Because I have, several times. Some people get stupid when the checkbook comes out. In fact that’s a well known ploy by large effective companies. You can get misbehaving vendors to pay attention to you if you get out the checkbook or threaten to put it away.