[koolba]

> They're also more likely to show up with their entire department (or org) on fire and demand a senior on-site presence or similar level of sustained round-the-clock commitment, including handoffs across time zones and geos, until the fire's out.

This is a great example of “doing things that don’t scale”.

When you’re a scrappy startup servicing a big time enterprise client, you get to a be star when shit hits the fan. Rather than getting a pre canned “we’ll get back to in $SLA_DURATION” response, you craft an answer and solution that actually addresses their issue. And you do it off hours, researching things that aren’t even directly your problem.

[nothercastle]

Yeah isn’t that the small vendor life? When you are the big fish everyone gets the f-off response but when you are small you have to help even if it’s not your fault or problem

[doctor_eval]

Yeah but kudos doesn’t pay the bills, and often doesn’t filter upwards.

Back in the 90s we got a call on Christmas Day. Went out of our way to help them. Got their SunOS box running again despite not being our thing.

Fuckers refused to pay the invoice, despite giving us a PO. What am I going to do, sue my customer?