It pays to ask
Today I did a little bit of legwork for our library-redesign project: talked to someone in the university IT hierarchy about possible partnership.
Oh, sure, he said right away. We’d love to do that; we don’t have a lab in that part of campus. We buy, install, and maintain the machines; the library supplies the staffing.
Audible clunk as my jaw hit the floor. Paying for the equipment was the biggest budget hurdle we had, and maintaining it the biggest staffing hurdle—and both had just evaporated right in front of me.
I’ll have to rewrite two pages’ worth of budget and partnering recommendations tomorrow, but boy, I can’t complain about the reason I’m doing it!
It pays to ask people for help. Really does. Even getting shot down most of the time, it still pays, because of the occasional jackpot like this. Wow. I still haven’t quite gathered up my jaw.