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That grinding sound you hear...
..is from my teeth.
Y'know, some of us who work for gov't contractors actually do try to save money. We get quotes and bids and search around for the best prices on stuff so that costs are kept as low as possible. The gov't, however, really doesn't make that easy.
So far on this contract, I've spent over $1300 more than really necessary to purchase a workstation that'll get used for a few weeks before the contract ends. Since the price was over $4000 total, I did the usual (and required) thing of getting 3 quotes on similar models. The cheapest was actually a Mac, but the gov't didn't want a Mac for stupid and/or incorrect reasons. The second one was a Dell, and the third an HP which is the example the gov't gave. The Dell was actually on sale at the time I got the quote, which would've made it even cheaper than the Mac. But hey, the customer insisted that the workstation must have a specific processor, which only HP offered. The Dell was .1Ghz slower.
I made reservations at a hotel for the travel related to the contract. We apparently must stay in this particular hotel because of the gov't rate there. A rate that, without gov't ID, I can't get. (In the old days, most hotels would let contractors stay at the gov't rate if it was for a gov't contract, but that's getting more and more rare). So, instead of the hotel right next door which has a rate that's $20 less per night, we have to stay at that one. Joy. I'm not even actually sure why I'm supposed to be on site for the stuff over the next two weeks. So there's a couple thousand $ more that probably doesn't really need to be spent.
Just now, I got done ordering compact flash cards and usb drives that should've been ordered a couple weeks ago. Of course, since the customer insisted in the contract that any purchase over 1 cent be approved by them, we put in a request with quotes and all. They just got around to approving it this morning. Did I mention that there are people onsite there now who kinda need them asap? Sheesh. Of all places, Wal Mart's site has enough available as well as the lowest price. Since they have to be there as soon as possible, they're going out overnight shipping. Of the over $4000 that I just put on my Mastercard, around $810 is for shipping. Yeah, I'm filling out the expense form on that right now.
Gah. We have to bug and pester them to approve the purchase of printer ink that we need to print documents for the contract, yet wastes like the above happen all the time.
Y'know, some of us who work for gov't contractors actually do try to save money. We get quotes and bids and search around for the best prices on stuff so that costs are kept as low as possible. The gov't, however, really doesn't make that easy.
So far on this contract, I've spent over $1300 more than really necessary to purchase a workstation that'll get used for a few weeks before the contract ends. Since the price was over $4000 total, I did the usual (and required) thing of getting 3 quotes on similar models. The cheapest was actually a Mac, but the gov't didn't want a Mac for stupid and/or incorrect reasons. The second one was a Dell, and the third an HP which is the example the gov't gave. The Dell was actually on sale at the time I got the quote, which would've made it even cheaper than the Mac. But hey, the customer insisted that the workstation must have a specific processor, which only HP offered. The Dell was .1Ghz slower.
I made reservations at a hotel for the travel related to the contract. We apparently must stay in this particular hotel because of the gov't rate there. A rate that, without gov't ID, I can't get. (In the old days, most hotels would let contractors stay at the gov't rate if it was for a gov't contract, but that's getting more and more rare). So, instead of the hotel right next door which has a rate that's $20 less per night, we have to stay at that one. Joy. I'm not even actually sure why I'm supposed to be on site for the stuff over the next two weeks. So there's a couple thousand $ more that probably doesn't really need to be spent.
Just now, I got done ordering compact flash cards and usb drives that should've been ordered a couple weeks ago. Of course, since the customer insisted in the contract that any purchase over 1 cent be approved by them, we put in a request with quotes and all. They just got around to approving it this morning. Did I mention that there are people onsite there now who kinda need them asap? Sheesh. Of all places, Wal Mart's site has enough available as well as the lowest price. Since they have to be there as soon as possible, they're going out overnight shipping. Of the over $4000 that I just put on my Mastercard, around $810 is for shipping. Yeah, I'm filling out the expense form on that right now.
Gah. We have to bug and pester them to approve the purchase of printer ink that we need to print documents for the contract, yet wastes like the above happen all the time.