A recent headline on USA Today’s web site was enough to make this diehard rebooter look twice: “Leaving PCs on overnight costs companies $2.8B a year.” Something as seemingly harmless as not shutting down costs industry that much and emits how many tons of carbon dioxide into the environment?
What’s particularly surprising, the article notes, is that this is going on during an economic “meltdown,” when companies are desperately cutting costs.
Such reckless waste, sadly, isn’t so surprising. Companies fritter away money all the time, in ways that are often not so apparent.
“Would you ask your roommate to rewire the house simply because he knows how to use a dimmer switch?”
Consider the IT department, for example. If a company purchases an upgrade to Office 2007 and does not give its employees or IT staff adequate training and support (no menus, no toolbars!), worker productivity will grind to a stop. Employees will face a steep learning curve with the new interface, and, once they’ve cleared that hurdle, will continue to flounder once they find and try to learn new features.
Then there’s the effect on the help desk, which will be bombarded with calls for software support, in addition to its regular diet of password resets and network connectivity issues. Internal help desks are staffed by generalists, whose how-to software knowledge is limited. (Think of it this way: Would you ask your roommate to rewire the house simply because he knows how to use a dimmer switch?) As a result, the IT department’s productivity will shrink too.
In such a scenario, the company’s return on investment will be non-existent, which is a reckless waste. (Jen Darr)
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About Jenny Sweeney
Interesting post, and definitely one that gets me thinking. The roommate-turned-electrician example is a bit out there, but I’ll go with it.
This is useful information in a time when conscientious consumption is more important than ever. I turn my PC off every night, and accordingly hope that this becomes compulsory across the board.