Brian J. Fox writes:
 >    From: Russell Nelson <nelson@crynwr.com>
 >    Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 23:09:00 -0500 (EST)
 > 
 >    D Henkel-Wallace writes:
 >     > Wal-mart is hard for a small FSB.
 > 
 >    There is certainly this idea among large companies that they just
 >    don't *want* to deal with small companies.  So, okay, a TLA government
 >    agency wants to do bulk mailing.  Their contractor even contacts me
 >    about qmail.  In the end, they buy from a reseller who goes to my
 >    competition simply because they appear to be a company.  Bzzzzzt,
 >    wrong.  So in the end, the TLA is contracting with me in the end,
 >    through the expediency of it contracting with a smaller company, and
 >    it with a smaller company, and it with me.
 > 
 > The agency perceives that you are only interested in the *technical*
 > solution to the agency's problem. They can't live with that.  They
 > need someone who is interested in them *as a customer*, not as a
 > problem to be solved.

Now this is the first answer that makes sense to me.  I think you're
right, because they seemed to concentrate on a particular technical
decision.  I tried to keep saying "No, no, don't worry about exactly
how I would do it if you hired me.  Worry about whether I can do the
job, and if you think I can, then hire me and let *me* worry about
getting the details correct," but they kept coming back to the details.

-- 
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