made a quick decision: he’d just send it out to Nonstop InfoSystems, since they were one of the better subcontractors they used.
From: John Anderson (Procurement)
To: Beth Richards (Nonstop InfoSystems)
Subject: Software contractors needed over holiday
Body:
Hi Beth
We have a a critical project that needs additional engineering resources over the holiday shutdown here. As you know, we take a two week vacation break. We need to hire engineers to fix some server performance issues. We’re looking for the following skill sets:
- server administration (6 headcount)
- database administration and performance tuning (6 headcount)
- software performance tuning (12 headcount)
- general software engineering (12 headcount)
We need experts in high performance, high scalability systems, who can put in 12 hour days over the holiday. Cost is not a factor, as we have leftover budget dollars. We need six people onsite, and the remainder can work remotely. Can you please put together a bid, and email it back to me?
On acceptance of the bid, I will email you with the details of the work to be done.
If Gary’s recent department purchases were a bit unusual, they were nothing compared to the iRobot procurement requests from the Offshore Data Center department that had come in that morning. The requests were labelled at the highest level of company confidentiality, but he was still so puzzled that he called Bill Larry, an old college buddy, to get the inside scoop. When Bill learned that he was reviewing the procurement request, he confirmed that Avogadro was indeed going to be arming the ODCs! Imagine, automated robotic defenses on an Avogadro data center. Even after the phone call, he could hardly believe that they were buying armed robots. He shook his head in disbelief.
Shortly after he finished the call with Bill, he stopped working through the queue of requests in alarm at the specter of an empty coffee cup. Had he already had his allotted four cups? Could he have another? He had just decided against one when Maggie Reynolds knocked on the open door of his office. “You busy?”
Maggie Reynolds was technically in the Finance department, not Procurement, but they worked together so often that John felt closer to Maggie than most of the people on his own team. She had just started at Avogadro six months earlier. John thought she was fun, and wished he could think of an excuse to ask her out, but the timing never seemed right. “Sure, come in.”
“I’m concerned about the way some of this last batch of purchases are being funded out of Gary Mitchell’s group,” she said, getting right to the point as she sat down.
John watched the way her earrings dangled as she spoke. Her hair looked different. Had she gotten a haircut? Would it be inappropriate to comment on her hair?
“Gary submitted a purchase order over his budget limit, and I kicked it back to him saying he couldn’t do that. Then he sent me this email. He divided up the purchase order among a bunch of individual project budgets. Shouldn’t it all have to come from one budget? It seems suspicious.” She wedged a tablet in front of his face to show him the email.
From: Bryce Cooper (Gary Mitchell’s Executive Assistant)
To: Maggie Reynolds (Procurement Finance)
Subject: re: updated billing code for reallocation exception
Body:
Maggie,
Gary has asked me to split this across the following billing codes:
9004-2345-01: $999,999.99
9002-3200-16: $999,999.99
9009-5387-60: $999,999.99
9009-6102-11: $999,999.99
9015-2387-19: $999,999.99
9036-1181-43: $109,022.23
John waved his hand dismissively at the tablet. “Normally, I’d agree with you. I’m up to my armpits in requests from Gary’s department. But you’ve got to consider the effect of the end of the fiscal year. Departments often have leftover money, and anything they don’t spend before the end of the year just evaporates. So at the end of the year, they start ordering servers they might need for the next year, new monitors for the employees, sudden urgent contracts with vendors, anything really, just to make use of the money before it disappears. And if they need to make big purchases, like Gary buying these servers, then he’d have to pool leftover money from many different budgets. We’re just two weeks away from the end of the year, and most everyone will be gone during the Christmas holiday. So you’re going to see a lot of purchases in these last few days.”
“That rewards gross financial mismanagement!” Maggie exclaimed in frustration.
She arched her neck as she said this, looking a little like Chewbacca from Star Wars. John wasn’t sure what it said about him, but he found it both endearing and sexy.
“If the money rolled over from one year to the next, it would reward saving money,” Maggie went on, growing more strident. “This just causes irresponsible spending.”
“I know, I know,” he said hurriedly, trying to placate her. “It’s contrary to every shred of common sense, but it’s just business as usual. Everyone plays the budget game to some degree.” He had to change the subject somehow before she grew any more angry. He looked down at his coffee cup, thumped his fingers on the table and gulped. “Do you want to get a cup of coffee sometime?”
Maggie looked down at the tablet with a sigh, and turned it off. “Sure, how about now?” she answered.
It wasn’t quite what John had in mind, but it was better than nothing. He happily picked up his mug, and they made their way together to the cafeteria.
Mike boarded his flight at 5:30 in the morning, and found himself in his seat, not quite sure of how he had gotten there. When had he last seen his father? It had been a year ago, over the Christmas break. No, he realized with a pang of guilt. He’d been dating someone, and went to Mexico with her for the holidays. Was it two years then?
He pictured his dad’s face as it was the last time he saw him. He was healthy then. Why, his mother had posted photos on Flickr of an all day hike that she and Mike’s dad had done that summer. He was still active.
Six hours later, after anguishing over his father’s health the entire time and feeling increasingly guilty for not visiting sooner, he arrived at Madison Airport terminal. It was just before lunch, local time, and snow flurries were starting to come down while the plane taxied to the gate. Mike tried his mom again by mobile phone while the plane was taxiing in, but the call went right to voicemail. He tried not to get frustrated as he craned his head over the crowd on the plane. Why couldn’t his mother keep her mobile phone on?
He absentmindedly thought that there should be a mobile phone app for monitoring the condition of someone checked into a hospital. He gritted his teeth in yet more frustration with himself. Even at a critical time, he still couldn’t stop his brain from coming up with more ideas. He glanced again at the email from his mother.
