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I had the opposite experience of John with large and small companies.
I've always worked as a lone writer for startups and the first days were
always sitting in a cubicle reading manuals or sales literature until
their deadlines were met and they had time to find me a computer and show
me around.
I started a year ago for a Megacorp and people were falling all over
themselves to get me setup. I met the entire IT team before meeting anyone
in my department. I have used these guys about 25 times for different
software, passwords, and accesses, each causing at least 3 different
people to talk, or spend time, with me, usually within minutes of my
request. There is also a 24/7 help line for everything from campus
directions to password resets to getting a trash can.
They had also never used FrameMaker here, but got it for me in less than a
week, including approvals, red tape, and purchasing. I was pretty
impressed. The bureaucracy part was that they had to buy 3 copies. The
other two are sitting around in case someone else needs to ...um... change
something? check up on me?
The biggest negative difference is that you have to empty your own trash
can.
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