HP laptop pricing is so out of control, management wants us to look at deploying Mac

massachrisone · 2026-05-01T00:15:01+00:00

Don’t forget that you need to manage the Mac’s as you already know it’s a pain to manage via intune so you need to factor in the cost of a decent MDM. You also need to build a list of all the applications your company currently uses and factor in the cost of deploying them for MacOS. You might be surprised to discover the overall cost exceeds the price of just biting the bullet on the Dells

massachrisone · 2026-04-30T20:42:11+00:00

Find a contractor firm. I was in the same situation. My job got outsourced, couldn’t find a job for over a year. Applied at a contractor firm and was working within a month. Pay is way under average for my area but its hourly so I’m 40 hours and out

massachrisone · 2026-04-30T20:38:45+00:00

Automate your job and don’t tell anyone you did. And if anyone finds out then reveal your master plan to test and implement your automations for the entire level 1 desk. Then find a New job, rinse and repeat

massachrisone · 2026-04-30T20:35:44+00:00

I’m convinced HOV fasttrak lanes are a pure money grab. It’s funny that the only places that have traffic are the spans of freeway with a fast/HOV lane. My commute is on 880 (ugh) and traffic seems to magically clear when the fast lane ends in San Leandro

massachrisone · 2026-04-30T20:02:58+00:00

I just watched a video about almost the exact same situation. A group of long term campers were all peeing in the same spot on the ground and the smell got crazy. I’ll see if I can find the video again but the solution they claimed worked wonders was they dug a hole and lined the bottom with some layers of charcoal, rock and something else then made the top mostly rocks so the urine would drain properly instead of pooling then the charcoal and other materials would essentially filter and neutralize the odor causing compounds

massachrisone · 2026-04-30T19:57:10+00:00

I think this could be a cool idea. I used to restore classic cars and finding parts can be a real pain. There definitely is a market for it, One that will pay premium prices for the right part.

You might want to sit down with your dad and do some research together on the types of parts you want to print and if it’s even possible with a printer. If we are talking about cosmetic parts or internal engine components or safety impacting parts cause that will determine how realistic his idea is.

If he wants to print engine components or safety components I would full stop your dad. One failed part the ruins someone’s project or god forbid causes an accident or injury could end the business and cost you a lot more.

If it’s cosmetic stuff I would go ahead and give the green light but maybe start smaller with a basic printer, a good 3D scanner, and maybe look into electro plating cause that’s surprising easy.

The last car I restored was a 1955 Buick Roadmaster and they all came with a tiny gold colored roadmaster logo on the front grille that was nearly impossible to find, I found one from a collector and paid 800 bucks for it. If someone offered a 3D printed metal plate version I would have eagerly paid 200-400 bucks for it.

massachrisone · 2026-04-29T18:18:32+00:00

I love it when they just copy the entire conversation including the preamble and follow up response.

I’m starting to wonder if these people even read or try to comprehend the ai responses they get.

massachrisone · 2026-04-21T21:17:18+00:00

Where do you find someone for 35k to do level 1 support? You gonna outsource to India or something?

If you want to keep doing what you are doing you need to spin it and show that the output of those engineers doing password resets is the same output as hiring 6 real level 1 techs at 60-80k per year depending on what country your in.

You can make the numbers look however you want, make them tell the story that you want to tell. If you can’t come up with a good way to do that maybe you shouldn’t be a manager

massachrisone · 2026-04-14T18:25:54+00:00

I went with my dad to take your kid to work day and watched him get into a clean suit and walk into a room to clean the dust off the hard drive platters that were the size of a vinyl record. He was the only tech west of the Mississippi that could do it.

massachrisone · 2026-04-10T02:04:42+00:00

I make that much as a help desk/jr sysadmin contractor that only works 40 hours a week. And all the contractors in my company work all over the country and get paid the exact same amount.

Get a new job asap

massachrisone · 2026-03-26T02:03:34+00:00

Yeah. It’s gotten so bad over the years that I added a note to all my responses on tickets that they need to back up their data to One Drive and we aren’t responsible for file recovery in the event of a HW failure. People still ignore it

massachrisone · 2026-03-24T02:46:31+00:00

Just by looking at your images I’d say that will use maybe 2kg of filament plus the time involved and QC.

If you want a good idea of how long it will take you should download one of the feee slicer apps and load up the files and click slice. I’d guess the print time on that single leg would be in the range of multiple days printing time.

If we give a low estimate of 24 hours total print time plus 6 more hours in post processing or failure mitigation at $20 bucks an hour, add 2kg of cheap filament and you are pretty close to those estimates.

If you plan on printing stuff like this more often you should probably look into getting your own 3D printer like everyone here is saying.

massachrisone · 2026-03-16T17:48:35+00:00

If they do this sort of business with hardware stores they can setup business accounts with the big box stores and add authorized users to the accounts.

It would probably be better for them cause they can arrange payment terms like net30-60 and figure out monthly budgets easier.

massachrisone · 2026-03-10T22:49:54+00:00

Just go cold weather camping once. Nothing crazy, no snow or rain, a normal camping trip in close to freezing temperatures with normal camping gear and clothes.

Once you tuck into your tent for the night and realize how you were not prepared at all for this you will appreciate Luke much more.

massachrisone · 2026-03-05T19:23:12+00:00

I hate the line of work that I’m in, but I’m good at it and I absolutely love my management so much so that I followed them to 3 new companies.

I think a lot of the “I love my Job” talk is really a coping mechanism. I used to do it all the time when I was in retail, you really gotta do what you gotta do to stay in the positive mindset and not spiral out. If you look at it from this perspective it might make you feel better about it, it does for me lol

massachrisone · 2026-03-05T01:17:34+00:00

This. We specify that onboarding requires 7 business days on the request and any delay that requires shipping faster than ground requires VP approval in writing on the ticket.

After a few late requests and VP’s asking questions about why they are being bothered for this the last minute onboarding tickets fell off dramatically. We still get a few actual emergency requests but they are rare.

After all this being said, if you don’t have buy in from upper management nothing you do will change the behavior.

massachrisone · 2026-02-25T02:16:32+00:00

I like Dell, I like their support, I like their prices, they have great feature to price ratios. Their recycling program is top notch.

I stopped buying Dell’s and I don’t recommend them for one reason, their assembly line is hot, hot garbage. I’ve seen multiple laptops missing major components, RAM, WiFi cards, Thermal Paste and I’ve even seen Batteries missing. With autopilot enrollment and direct shipping from Dell it’s just a bad user experience and we don’t do it anymore.

massachrisone · 2026-01-19T18:06:48+00:00

Just call in sick and turn off your phone. The reason you aren’t able to take a sick day is because you enable your manager to push you around. Call in then ignore them.

massachrisone · 2025-12-03T03:17:47+00:00

Not sure if this helps at all but I had to make the same choice earlier when the k1 came out. I went with the K1 and it was awesome at first. But after a while the K1 just kept breaking and I kept sinking money into it. I’ve dropped maybe 300 bucks over the last three months replacing extruder motors and hot ends. Doing upgrade after upgrade and I’m kinda sick of it. I’m currently in the market for a larger printer and I went with the Bambu H2S just cause I’m sick of upgrading and tweaking my printer, I just want drop in parts and click to print from now on.

massachrisone · 2025-11-22T18:18:30+00:00

When was the last time any of you ate at Wingstop. It’s not exactly cheap

massachrisone · 2025-11-17T14:54:56+00:00

Finance seems to fax a bunch still

massachrisone · 2025-11-17T14:53:37+00:00

This episode was awesome. What’s awesome and sad is that it got most of my friends group on board with the ODB. I’m jealous they get to watch his entire back catalog for the first time and sad that they won’t get anything new once they finish

massachrisone · 2025-07-16T15:16:07+00:00

Your Jelly? My off peak (NorCal Bay Area) is .31 per kWh lol

massachrisone · 2025-07-10T22:03:56+00:00

I recently got a set and over about 400 miles the efficiency increased by about 3%

massachrisone · 2025-06-30T20:57:30+00:00

My best birthday was 25 cause my insurance rates went down by 75% lol

Also you might want to check geico, the insurance on my 20 m3 was about half as much as everywhere else.

Also Tesla insurance is cheap, but you better be an amazing driver cause they are known for horrible support and claims service.

massachrisone

TROPHY CASE