'Why don't you just rent it for $48,000?': Tiny IT department begs for new equipment, Vice President refuses to buy it for them

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jul 23, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

This IT department tried to warn their leaders that they were about to spend a lot of money, but they just wouldn't listen. 

Every company tries to save money as best they can, though some are better at the task than others. It's incredible how many companies bleed money by overpaying their higher-ups, not watching how much money is being spent on clients, or just being bad at keeping finance employees employed. Not to mention that departments can get overwhelmed and let things slip through the cracks. 

This company is a good example of poor communication over the costs of a circuit emulator. Instead of looking at the full cost of this thing (which was thousands of dollars back in the day), this company just looked at the monthly cost and agreed to pay it. It seems that the Finance Vice President only found out the exorbitant cost of this once it was too late… You can check out u/calladus's workplace tale of malicious compliance down below. Commenters were also amazed that the business would overlook something this big. 

Next, read about these people who've gone through life misunderstanding a few things, like one woman who wondered aloud, "Why can't we drive to Hawaii?"

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  • 01
    ST-20308 • 94V0A VIA bel
    via Andrey Matveev on Unsplash
  • 02
    "The $15,000 equipment is too expensive for your department to purchase. Why don't you just rent it for $48,000 a year?" Back in the days when 33.6kbps modems were hot I worked ' for the engineering department of a growing company.
    via u/calladus
  • 03
    This company had started small. It was privately owned, and the VPs had all put in a portion of their own money to start the company. By this time in the story, they were finally making a respectable 30-40 million a year in profits. But they still acted like a small company. Penny pinching.
    via u/calladus
  • 04
    Our engineering department was designing circuit boards with embedded computer systems. And to program these, instead of soldering the microcomputer to the board, we would solder on a microcontroller socket, and then plug in an "In Circuit Emulator" that would pretend it was a microcontroller, and allow the programmer to create the required program.
    via u/calladus
  • 05
    This In Circuit Emulator, or ICE, was made by Hitachi. It plugged into a free PCI slot on your PC, and had a ribbon cable that would attach to the specialized microcontroller die that plugged into the socket.
    via u/calladus
  • 06
    It was a mess. It gave our tiny IT department headaches. And it cost $15,000. And it was an absolute necessity for most of our most popular product lines. And there was only one of them.
    via u/calladus
  • 07
    And we were renting it. It cost $4,000 a month. The first month we had it, our CTO and Marketing VP planned our whole new product line around this family of microcontrollers.
    via u/calladus
  • 08
    So, at the end of the month, us engineers ask management to buy this for us. Since we would be using it for a while.
    via u/calladus
  • 09
    The Engineering VP saw the price tag, and told us to just rent it. Surely we would be done with it soon. Engineers, being practical, forgot about the objection and just put our noses to the wheel.
    via u/calladus
  • 10
    The CTO and Marketing made plans to keep us busy using this microcontroller line for a while. They pre-ordered a few million. chips.
    via u/calladus
  • 11
    After a year, the VP of Finance asked about this recurring contract line item. They called the engineer who had originally started the contract. The engineer helpfully forwarded the approval from the Engineering VP, and his later email asking to buy it, and the VP's reply where he demurred.
    via u/calladus
  • 12
    By the end of the week, this toy was ours. Along with a second one, since finance determined that product rollout was being affected by not enough access to the equipment.
    via u/calladus
  • 13
    Hitachi just gave us the first one. Stopped charging us, and never asked for it back. We paid $15,000 for a second one.
    via u/calladus
  • 14
    No one got fired or demoted. But at the next department meeting, the Engineering VP tried to tell us that we didn't have enough money to upgrade our PCs. That one engineer spoke up, "Would $40 thousand cover it?" The company found the money.
    via u/calladus
  • 15
    lpenap It amazes me how companies that heavily relies on engineering, try to be cheap af with essential equipment without even looking at the numbers. I mean if you are squeezing a few millions from eng, why not upgrade their equipment for a few couple thousands?
    via u/lpenap
  • 16
    TheInitialGod Would there have been a way to buy the unit yourself and just rent it back to your own company for the $4k a month? You'd break even after 4 months, and the rest is profit for you!
    via u/TheInitialGod
  • 17
    How do stupid people get these jobs? I want one!
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 18
    SaintFuncisco If you rent it, it's an expense. If you buy it it is capex. Sure you can depreciate it over time and save some taxes. Maybe your company had a cash flow issue?
    via u/SaintFuncisco

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