This is just off the top of my head (what a mess) but just to 
stimulate some discussion here goes. What if the company gave every 
engineer/programmer/animator an official capital equipment
budget of say 5% of their base salary. This money could be 
spent on any equipment (within reason) that the person felt
would aid them in achieving the goal of 25% more efficiency.
The amount of paperwork to justify/wheadle/cajole this would
be kept to an absolute minimum.
	people would be allowed to combine their allocations
to make bigger group purchases. They would be allowed to carry
over some percentage of the unused money into subsequent
years. 
	To assuage management fears of frivolous purchases
perhaps people could be allowed to trade in their allocations
for 20 cents on the dollar if they chose at the end of the 
fiscal year, reducing the incentive to squander.
	Finally, I bet some programmers and engineers would
avail themselves of a feature where the company would match
employee contriutions to the "plan" at a 3 to 1 rate for those
"extra needs".
	
	I know that a vast majority of the people seeing
this message would spend their allocation wisely and to
the immense benefit of the company. I also feel that additional
benefits such as employee admiration for managements 
enlightened attitude and the sense of being trusted and
treated as professionals would accrue.
	
	
	SO THERE. WHAT DO UUUU THINK?

The plan sounds very enticing, but I think we need some set of metrics
which can be used to determine whether or not we are working 25% more
efficiently as a result.  How do we tell if it worked?

				Bonnie

Besides, how many want everybody to know what 5% of his/her salary is?

We're all reasonably good at arithmetic.

While we are dreamin' (I mean really dreamin here), I think that the
equipment budget should be by department, with the manager/supervisor
making the decision on where to spend the money for the group based on
input from individuals. This protects sensitive information, gives
mid-level managers some clout, and allows easier pooling for large 
purchases.

5% is way to low. Starting with a $40K annual salary (some make more, some make
less), 5% yields  $2k per year per person. For my group, I need to buy an
Arium for each programmer at about $15k each (Ariums have quick downloads and
offer source-level de-bugging; both improve productivity considerably). I need
to buy 2-3 Mac's at about $6k each, and I need some new scopes (2-3K each) and
a good logic analyzer for the 68000 at maybe $20k. So about $150K in round
numbers would do it. Spreading that over 3 years, for $50k per year means I
need more like 10% of the salaries for my group. 

Now we can all dream more accurately.

  While alot of you are trying to come up with an equipment advantage 
plan, and call it "DREEM'N "  or just pushing to become more ( %25 )
efficient,  I'm wondering about why $150 k is considered to be TOO 
LARGE an amount for finance to cough-up to fund our equipment needs.!??? 

  Also, something else that's been bothering me for some time now is how
ATARI and TENGEN can afford to provide our EXECs with luxury ( 560 SLs )
automobiles while they have a difficult time funding our essential 
equipment needs.  I may be out of line on this one since I don't know for
a fact that who pays for their Mercedeses and BMWs, but one would wonder
about such lucrative accomodations.

  During early 80s, when CHRYSLER corporation was going through hard times 
LEE IOCOCA made a promise to the american public that he would turn things
around and pay back the money we loaned his company.  He did all that for
an anual salary of $1 . 

						Farrokh

If I added 25% hours to my work week....

I'd be working around 72 hours a week....

And I'm sure that your calculations would exceed mine!


Question:	If coin-operated games have been around for 2000 years,
		what slang did they give the industry?


Answer:		Denari-op

When Lee Iococo worked for only $1/year, he also bought almost all the
stock in the company for about a dollar. There is always a hitch, Farrokh


P.S. remember back when we used to be stockholders in our own parent company?