The Law is the Law, Unless You're a Huge Corporation

Sales reps and arrogant pricks tend to be a bit offputting. Maybe that was redundant and the classification is one in the same. Splitting hairs. The point is this, the law is the law and despite what you might think of that law, or how much you wish that law didn't exist, you still cannot break that law. Furthermore, it is unscrupulous to ask someone else to do it on your behalf. Is it easier? Well sure, but it doesn't make you look like a very upstanding person ...

We had a deal for a USCG outfit that was going through a prime contractor, then a sub, then us that has gone all kinds of wrong because every entity is trying to squeeze every last drop out of what they can get (see "value claiming" versus "value creation" in the parlance of the Ivy League b-schools). At the end of the day the sub was pissed at us for "retracting an offered discount", which was untrue ... they just felt it was. We had offered them a discount if they could come up with required document. They promised to do so ... provided an irrelevant letter ... then got pissed they didn't get the discount because they couldn't come up with the prerequisite.

To break this down to an easily digestable equation:
- You have a final exam coming up in history
- Your prof tells you if you score a 90% or greater on the exam you will get an A
- You walk into the exam 5 minutes early, turn someone else's Spanish exam into the prof's folder, then go to the beach and get drunk with your friends
- Show up to class the next week and get your "ZERO - F" test result, then start screaming at the prof that he lied to you about all that 90%-and-an-A-in-the-class talk.
- Aaaand scene ...

That's how today has gone. People are morons. At the end of all this discussion the COO from this company said to me, "Well we're working with another company much bigger than you and they're accepting this letter." Oh, well in that case, no problem! I mean, fuck - when has a big corporation ever fudged the rules 'cause they thought they could get away with it? What was I thinking?! Why should we, the government contracting specialists, have any freakin' idea about this? The big corporation is doing it and have they ever gotten in trouble?! Hubris is a business man's greatest gift! Just make the sell! Fuck the rules! I'll be in Argentina by the time anyone finds out! (That last bit is a true story for a different post) Maybe our contract officer would give us a pass for that! "Well, you see, we did understand the law, but then we saw them doing it soooo ... business immunity, I guess ..." What a dick.