Quote:
Originally Posted by Devant
I agree totally bureaucratic, but it does generate revenue for companies like mine, in audit fees.
Your loss is my gain //jk  |
No doubt! haha I used to think the same thing when we did about 80% of our commercial work for the government.
last one i did was for department of health. They have a 4 story admin building. in 2009 the renovated the whole building, top to bottom. New everything, total build out.
In 2012 the had one department move to another building and the department in that building move to the 4 story building. Don't ask me why. But the new department was going to occupy the 3rd floor. They needed some ceramic tile in a break room, some VCT in a few copy rooms and new carpet tile in the revised entry. Bout a $14,000 contract. Before starting, they ask for a quote to re-carpet the entire 3rd floor because some of the work on the 4th floor would require carpet that was currently installed on the 3rd to be moved to the 4th. Makes sense so far....
I give them a quote. They accept it and write me a change order. Then they ask me for a quote to install the 3rd floor carpet on the 4th floor. Turns out they only needed carpet for 3 rooms on the 4th floor. This is what my contract looked like....
Original Contract - $14,000
Change Order 1 - $137,000
Change Order 2 - $3,200
So to get the same color carpet in the 3 rooms on the 4th floor, they purchased $137k worth of new carpet for the 3rd floor. Get ready for the kicker.....
They ordered the exact same carpet that was previously installed. If i made it difficult to follow, Originally, before we were contracted, all floors had the same X123 carpet. They needed this color carpet for changes on the 4th floor so they took it from the 3rd floor. Then they replaced ALL the carpet on the 3rd floor with the same X123 carpet. Same manufacture, same style, same color. Seriously? WTF?!?
As a tax payer, i'm furious. As a business owner, i'm saying at least i'm benefiting from this. But the truth is, it hurts all of us, even the guys doing the work. It's not sustainable and the government doesn't care.
That kind of government waste, fraud, and abuse is what drives me crazy and makes me want the government to stay out of the free market.