Hacker News Reader

And then there are two reasons and you failed to discern which it is. Either:

1) thing is not essential, you saved the cost

2) a workaround that is inconvenient or costly exists, compare costs

3) you just caused an opportunity cost

In other words, you're breaking the process. Unless you're a process engineer and track both causes and results diligently you should not do that. Ever.

View on HN

Excellent analysis! I would modify #2 slightly, as a workaround might also be convenient and cheap.

Obviously one should use common sense to avoid adverse outcomes. Inexpensive productivity tools get approved more quickly, whereas upgrades to perfectly fine but previous generation laptops may take a week or so :-).

Often if the workaround is convenient and cheap and know of it, they won't bother calling support.

Then the role of some person should be to gather such tacit knowledge and convert it into a usable and transmittable form.

Now if they do not know about one, they probably should be informed. :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com