An open letter to the tireless staff members who inspect my purchase “orders”:
I’d like to thank you for your efforts to conserve public funds and to ensure that I (and by extension the university) are getting the maximum benefit from those funds. I appreciate your willingness to scrutinize even the small details to make sure that each item is necessary and optimal. This is particularly evident over the past few weeks as I have tried to spend down the last of my startup funds from when I was hired last summer.
I admit, I was skeptical when I first became aware of the review and oversight policies. “I spent the last 8 years learning how to operate, specify, purchase and in some cases build this type of instrument,” I grumbled to myself, “and now an accountant wants to pass judgement on how well I do that?!” For, you see, scientists do learn that there are often several competing products which can offer similar performance, and how to investigate the differences between them, and how to decide whether Star Technologies or AdAstra Products offers better results for the purpose. They learn how to talk to both companies and figure out that the “Star Tech 1012″ costs a little bit less than the “AdAstra Visor 9000″, but that the “Visor 9000″ can collect data ten times faster. And they realize that that difference may come in handy one day – even if the immediate use may not need that extra speed. So I thought, frankly, that it was just a little bit insulting to have to write a three-page memo justifying my decision to buy from AdAstra (with reference to their patents and a detailed explanation of how the patent claims are “essential” to my work).
Likewise, I was a little bit dismayed to find out this morning that the computer I had “ordered” three weeks ago through the IT department has been waiting all this time for review and approval. “Please call me ASAP to see whether we can find a better configuration,” the email said, so I did – would I like to spend an extra $400 on a high-end graphics card to allow parallel processing in MATLAB? No, it’s not yet clear that I need that much parallel capacity, which is why I requested the $50 upgrade instead of the $400 one. Would I like to spend another $900 to buy the 8-core processor instead of the 4-core one? No, I won’t be needing that either, actually, or not enough to blow a third of my remaining budget on. “Okay, I just needed to check. I’ll see about finishing the review process now.”
I do realize that there are people, surely, who somehow manage to remain blind to the realities of what things cost, or who order the “brand name” product without realizing that there may be cheaper alternatives. I understand that there are even cases where an instrument vendor could offer a purchaser a little financial consideration under the table for rigging the deal to make sure that Unethical Instruments, LLC, gets the contract. (And that the same procedures are needed whether it’s a $800,000 construction job or a $8,000 spectrometer.)
At the same time – you hired me, Dear University, because you were convinced that I knew how to do this job. It’d be nice if you’d quit throwing up obstacles when I try to actually do it.
Cordially yours,
[Redacted]
