Bring your own

[DAVE PINNER]

So, too, the auto mechanics often supply their own tools, yet they're
employed by the service garage. I enjoyed your note to Cathy about
this, and I share your outlook on cautions to businesses about who
supplies what computing tools. I advocate giving employees the widest
possible choices of tools, and I support employees' preferences for
using their own tools to get their work done, provided that everyone
understands that regardless of who owns what, employees are responsible
for delivering their work products.

Hopefully, we're approaching the day when we can treat computing tools
as truly personal tools... sorta' like we deal with the array of other,
less "computer oriented" tools... daytimers, pocket calculators.. all
that stuff. I, for one, am looking forward to being able to pick a new
computer (blister packed and hanging on pegboard at Office Max) up like
I would a $5.00 Casio calculator. (Oh, did I mention? I want the
computer to be similarly priced?!)

A business can make itself vulnerable even when it provides hardware
and software for its employees to use (disallowing personally owned
stuff..) I've seen countless cases of poor disk backup discipline, for
instance, that puts all of a department's eggs in one basket (or hard
disk drive.) An employee who blows up his hard drive as the end of a
fiscal cycle approaches can't use "it broke" as an excuse for not
delivering his work. Where are the backups!?