Your story reminded me on an incident when I was working as a purchasing
intern at IBM between my junior and senior years at school. On of my
tasks was to take care of tools orders from the machine shops. I
received an order for a single grinding wheel. I called the
manufacturer to get a price and was surprised when I was told (as best I
remember) that a single wheel was $30 and two wheels were $10 for both.
I was perplexed by the huge disparity in the unit price and asked the
purchasing agent I was working with why that was so. He said: It's a
message to you, the buyer. If you really, really want a single wheel
we'll sell you one. But we make and package them in pairs and that's
the way we want to sell them. The lightbulb came on and I understood.
So I called the machinist back who had placed the order and told him I
was going to order two wheels instead of one and why I was going to do
it. He got extremely upset. He said his manager had been breathing
down his neck over surplus inventory. He only needed one wheel and
there was no way he was going to take two. I solved the problem by
ordering two, taking delivery myself and sticking one of the wheels in
my desk drawer in the purchasing department. Maybe it's even still
there. :-)
Chuck Norcutt
On 12/14/2013 4:02 PM, Jim Nichols wrote:
> Glad you found it interesting. Here's another item to disturb the
> bureaucrats and bean counters. When the original nozzle plates were
> procured, two spare plates were also purchased and placed in the base
> warehouse as spares, in case one of the originals were damaged during
> use. The need was obvious to the original project managers and went
> unquestioned for many years. Then, as USAF staff turned over during the
> years, someone decided that spares must be justified. If they weren't
> used within some specified time period, then they were deemed surplus!
> It didn't matter that the plate material was no longer manufactured, or
> that procurement would take quite a period of time, even if a source
> could be found.
>
> Cooler heads prevailed, and, last I heard, the spares were still there.
> Sometimes the writers of rules just don't understand that there must be
> exceptions!
>
> Jim Nichols
> Tullahoma, TN USA
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