How purchasing departments work, part 94.

[NotAllThere]

The admin ladies at clientco used to take the company credit card to the local supermarket to buy fruit for the ~40 people in the offices. £30 per week budget. This has now been stopped by the purchasing department, who say the company credit card mustn't be used in this way, and that fruit must be bought from one of the approved catering suppliers. They charge considerably more for each fruit item than the local supermarket does, in addition to a fixed fee of £10. That means we'd get now about 10 apples between us.

This is not value for money, so the fruit budget has been abolished.

Obv. this doesn't affect rich contractors, but it is a fine example of corporate idiocy. What's odd is that the CIO and his team are part of this office, and were the ones who instigated the fruit bowls. But even they don't have the power to go against purchasing...

[northernladyuk]

The admin ladies at clientco used to take the company credit card to the local supermarket to buy fruit for the ~40 people in the offices. £30 per week budget. This has now been stopped by the purchasing department, who say the company credit card mustn't be used in this way, and that fruit must be bought from one of the approved catering suppliers. They charge considerably more for each fruit item than the local supermarket does, in addition to a fixed fee of £10. That means we'd get now about 10 apples between us.

This is not value for money, so the fruit budget has been abolished.

Obv. this doesn't affect rich contractors, but it is a fine example of corporate idiocy. What's odd is that the CIO and his team are part of this office, and were the ones who instigated the fruit bowls. But even they don't have the power to go against purchasing...

If this happened in the public sector, it would be seen as an example of public sector wastage. Really, it's just big organisation wastage. Made me smile so thanks for sharing.

[DimPrawn]

Sounds like an EU diktat to me.

[PurpleGorilla]

Cool story bro.

[eek]

I'm currently rewriting some code as end client can't push through the $500 a month for a box required for a PoC and nor can I face the internal pain if I ask for the box internally.

the fact that I understand the old school approach and haven't used the other approach in 2+ years is neither here nor there.

A previous clientco used to offer both free kit-kats and coke. Offices were then asked to make a decision which to keep. The office I was in kept the kit-kats everywhere else kept the Coke.

[barrydidit]

The office I was in kept the kit-kats everywhere else kept the Coke.

Penny pinching losers. Without hookers to dispense the coke I'd have gone with kit-kats too.

[northernladyuk]

Penny pinching losers. Without hookers to dispense the coke I'd have gone with kit-kats too.

Do you prefer two or four fingers?

[PurpleGorilla]

Do you prefer two or four fingers?

[SueEllen]

Chunky two fingers then.

[greenlake]

I'd have gone with kit-kats too.

....or, for the same price, twice as much of something similar....