[nickdothutton]

"The system is working as intended". I once attended an official seminar given by the government procurement department, to an audience of (mostly) government department people with purchase authority. The subject of which was how to construct your invitations to tender such that only the largest 3-4 suppliers could possibly respond. "Solves the problem of having to consider 20-30 suppliers and review their submissions". I'm so glad that was early on in my career (as a vendor).

[pessimizer]

I worked for the state and had to participate in procurement. Not only did they do this, but when we were purchasing commonly available things, we purchased them from weird insider vendors whose catalogs were literally photocopies of other catalogs with the prices blacked out.

When I left, people were advising me to become a vendor, which was what a lot of people did as a retirement plan. You'd go to the secret portal and fill out the inscrutable forms, then give them to someone who you probably knew at the special time. Then the state would order things from you, and you would simply order them from Amazon or Uline or whatever. There was also a trade in minority and female figureheads (to white male businesses) to get you prioritized.

[cucumber3732842]

Approaching 20yr ago now I sat through a training on the state automotive inspection license for reasons have to do with software that ran it.

Slide 1ish: State cares about emissions, take it very seriously if you want to keep your license.

Slide 2ish: State gives no fucks either way about "safety" inspections, they don't affect squat and aren't worth the money so far as our studies and stats can tell

Slide 3ish: If it wasn't obvious, "safety" is your blank check to sell work and in return the state expects you to take emissions seriously.

The rest of the slides were technicalities and requirements and the final slide was a recap of 1-3.

I too am glad I was exposed to such things early on.