[fallous]

I had a friend who, many years ago, got a military contract to manufacture an item. I jokingly asked him if he was competing with $1200 hammers and $500 toilet seats and his response was "if you had any idea how much paperwork and red tape is involved in doing anything with the government you'd say that the $500 toilet seat was under-priced and the contractor probably lost money on every one."

[treeman79]

My dad was involved in military aircraft purchasing.

It was very tricky to avoid getting in trouble.

Putting stuff out to bid was the main thing he managed. When possible he just went with previous winners as it cut down the paperwork needed.

Lot of times someone would come in really low on the bid, he knew the people and that it would be crap product. So lots of work to get higher bids approved.

Also apparently if you get a ride in the company limousine, the drivers have tons of juicy gossip.

[temp667]

In some places the cost to do a govt deal can be many multiplates easily (and totally justified) normal cost.

The hammer is not actually $1,200. The paperwork can easily be.

Do you have McBride Principles stuff done and documented? Have you trained your staff on McBride principles if they might purchase supplies, documented it and maintained proper documentation (this is about something in Northern Ireland which has very little to do with buying snacks for a kids program). Repeat x100. Where I am the ethnicity / race / national origin stuff is huge, and the different agencies don't have a common set of labels. So you are stuck asking everyone very personal questions even they don't understand. I mean, for ethnicity you are one thing, for race there is another set of labels, so you have to ask them the same race question 4 times under each random set of labels that are being used, for national origin another set etc.

The actual quality of your hammer? Never tested. The details on the paperwork - lots of folks looking and nitpicking. Some of this just starts as a resolution at some level, that gets added on and added on over and over. So some politician will say McBride principles are great. 2 years later a contract analyst or internal auditor asks, how are we documenting / demonstrating compliance with this requirement. They then push their vendors to train staff involved in purchasing on the principles. Then they want documentation of that training. Each one in isolation is a small waste, but at scale it's a monumental waste.

What's even funnier, stuff stays forever. There are requirements in contracts to hand out old IRS forms (W-5) for Advance EITC - that program is long gone, but you still have to hand out the forms - and tell staff that if they fill them out and submit them nothing will happen. Sure builds staff faith in govt efficiency.

You can't even argue this stuff, I used to try and it's a brick wall.

I can't stand it, but if you can push paper and have some political pull it's a gravy train, because cost / quality is so low on the basis of selection list. This tends to attract the wrong type of company (ie, scammers get a lot further than they should, and companies delivering good product don't).

[spiritplumber]

that's my experience too.

Basically it's the same PITA when it comes to getting things countersigned, approved etc. for spending $200 in parts as it is for spending $2000 in parts. So might as well order in bulk.