tuna55 said:Datsun240ZGuy said:In reply to tuna55 :
I wish.
I, a senior product development engineer, cannot communicate directly to any vendors.
At all?
That may be the stupidest thing I've heard. How do you discuss what product would best fill your needs without talking to the people who actually supply them?
Toyman! said:tuna55 said:Datsun240ZGuy said:In reply to tuna55 :
I wish.
I, a senior product development engineer, cannot communicate directly to any vendors.
At all?
That may be the stupidest thing I've heard. How do you discuss what product would best fill your needs without talking to the people who actually supply them?
The procurement guy will literally take my Email to him, copy the text, and send it to the vendors. Then he takes the vendors response, copies their text, and Emails it to me. In the rare instance I get in touch with a vendor, it is under supervision of the procurement guy. This goes for all of our department, not just me. Their VP tried to get me fired for calling a vendor.
In reply to tuna55 :
What a cumbersome way of doing business.
I guess it's to keep the kickbacks to a minimum or at least keep them for upper management.
In reply to Toyman! :
I have worked in a Fortune 500s Vendor Management department before. We were under a different umbrella than Procurement.
It actually worked well, but there weren't really any silly rules like don't let individuals contact the vendors. We just needed to be copied on 75% of it, because 90% of the time there was something redundant going on and we didn't want to pay for the same thing twice.
tuna55 said:Peabody said:In reply to tuna55 :
That's why I only correspond in email or text.
When somebody says, oh, I didn't know that, or you should have told me that, I can easily highlight when and where I did. I'm a stickler for communication in the work place for a reason.
All of that is via Email, and the procurement guy insists on adding fifteen people, including multiple VPs
Even better.
My second email would be clarification. There would not be a third.
Peabody said:tuna55 said:Peabody said:In reply to tuna55 :
That's why I only correspond in email or text.
When somebody says, oh, I didn't know that, or you should have told me that, I can easily highlight when and where I did. I'm a stickler for communication in the work place for a reason.
All of that is via Email, and the procurement guy insists on adding fifteen people, including multiple VPs
Even better.
My second email would be clarification. There would not be a third.
Then nothing would ever happen. He wouldn't order anything. It would be perceived as my fault.
In reply to peanutpckrupper :
Ok. I know this is harsh, but you have an electrical problem on a German car. This is the definition of predictable.
In reply to tuna55 :
i've worked at a company like that before, and it was incredibly frustrating. I always assumed it was to protect the procurement department from becoming irrelevant (if i can talk to vendors and order parts, why do I need procurement?) but it only served to drive me crazy, cause so much headache, and delays because my email to a vendor gets filtered through another person with other emails, vacations, bathroom breaks, etc
budget_bandit said:In reply to tuna55 :
i've worked at a company like that before, and it was incredibly frustrating. I always assumed it was to protect the procurement department from becoming irrelevant (if i can talk to vendors and order parts, why do I need procurement?) but it only served to drive me crazy, cause so much headache, and delays because my email to a vendor gets filtered through another person with other emails, vacations, bathroom breaks, etc
Yup, or the guy is annoyed so he obfuscates the meaning of the message, or pretends he cannot understand the requirements. In my naivity when I started here I wanted pricing on a bunch of different materials for a 1/8" pin.
Me: I need a 1/8" dowel pin x" long in materials A-J
Procurement: I can't do that without a drawing
Me: OK! Here is a drawing of a pin, can you give me a quote in materials A-J?
Procurement: The print doesn't show the chamfer on the end which is typical for stock pins, please add it.
Me: OK there is a chamfer on the model now, can you get a quote in materials A-J?
Procurement: The chamfer needs to be dimensioned and toleranced.
Me: I really don't care, and nobody is saying on their prints online what the chamfer is, and I can't call and ask, can you just get a quote in materials A-J?
Procurement: I need a print to get quotes.
Me: OK, here is a revision with a chamfer toleranced so widely that they can't miss. Can you please get a quote with materials A-J?
Procurement: I cannot get a quote since the materials are not on the drawing.
Me: OK, here is a revision with a note showing materials A-J. Can you please get a quote with those materials now?
Procurement: No. Please revise with each material as a seperate part on the drawing.
Me: OK, here are ten parts on the same drawing. Can you please get a quote for each?
HR: Tuna55, please report to a special meeting with us. procurement has reported you for making unnecessary and burdensome revisions to drawings and asking them to quote each one.
That actually happened.
A downburst happened in the middle of doing a small project. Tools are soaked, I'm soaked aaaannnd... now the sun is shining brightly and the humidity is off of the charts.
In reply to Recon1342 :
Man, I'm sorry to hear that.
In reply to tuna55 :
See, now I'd see that as progress. You're trying to be a productive and useful employee and you're being hamstrung by someone being an officious chunderhead. And now you have a way to explain the situation.
Appleseed said:In reply to Recon1342 :
Man, I'm sorry to hear that.
Thanks, amigo. That means a lot to me.
He's been dealing with congestive heart failure since 1998. His LVAD has been implanted for almost 6 1/2 years now, and the right side of his heart and kidneys are finally wearing out.
I love him beyond words, but he just don't have a lot of gas left in the tank.
Still, not a lot of folks out there that can say they made CHF their bitch for almost 30 years...
In reply to tuna55 :
I've covered this with a large OEM before - if I buddy up with an engineer and convince him to write me in the print or general specification I can sell or overcharge for my parts.
Maybe buy the guy something or send him some cash? Ethical? No, but your system protects from this.
In reply to tuna55 :
That is absurd for commercially available parts, and a complete waste of company resources.
Recon1342 said:ReconDad has been in the hospital in Salt Lake City for the past week. The original plan was to get him ready for discharge by Monday. Yesterday afternoon, everything went south on us. Current plan is discharge to a skilled nursing facility in Ogden, and call the shots from there. He may improve, but Doc says it's not likely based on his age and health issues.
E36 M3.
Well E36 M3 that sucks.
Happy thoughts and mojo sent your way
In reply to Recon1342 :
Very sorry to hear that. Please keep us posted as you are able. Best of luck and medical science to you folks.
In reply to All of you magnificent people :
Thanks, everybody. Your kind words are appreciated.
Dad is 79, and he's been in declining health for a long time. I will be surprised if he makes it to the end of June.
ReconMom, ReconSis, and I have all had our chance to process things and come to grips with Dad's health. Dad, on the other hand, has not. He's still fighting, and I love him for it...
But I would rather he stop suffering.
It's gonna be a hard row to hoe for all of us...
Long weekend. Perfect weather. I have a man cold. This sucks.
In reply to Recon1342 :
I had to move my dad to an assisted living a few weeks ago. He is 88 and used to doing stuff on his own-semi-independent with my help on the weekends until mid February this year. It really sucks when they want to do things, but the body is just done.
Correction Dementia and Alzheimers is worse. But this sucks too.
When you are a kid, you don't realize it, but our dads were/are tougher than leather. They didn't puff their chest and say, "Look how tuff I am.," they just were.
Since I can't find the parts to do job one, parts I know I have, I've moved on to job two, and I'm missing one fitting. A fitting I know I have because I test fit it last week. The fact that I am unusually tired today even though I slept well last night is definitely not helping.
Not having a great day.
I have no idea what the gritty details are, and I don't really care... Apparently, there is one student in my daughter's class that they are not permitting to walk at graduation tonight. No idea why, again, don't care. Apparently they threatened to show up with huge numbers of people to stage some sort of protest or to clog up the works or take up all the available seats or something, so now they've issued tickets and might even be checking ID at the door and at the baccalaureate Mass and brunch this morning they had a couple cops wandering around. I'm sorry that your kid doesn't get to walk, but my kid didn't cause that and I didn't cause that, so why are you going to try to punish me? And if we assume that you're wanting to have some sort of protest to "raise awareness" or whatever the kids say these days do you actually think that you're going to convert me to your cause or side by somehow disrupting or disturbing my kid's graduation ceremony?
In reply to Appleseed :
My dad was a guy that did everything. Cars, plumbing, painting, carpentry and taught me to do it all. On cars I'd tighten the nut/bolt then he'd crank it further - strongest guy I knew.
When he was in his early 70's he called me to tell me he was too weak to cut his grass any more so I took over and realized the weird cycle of life we are all circling.
moving today and one of these on our bed broke. normally wouldn't be a problem except it's a 3/4 inch thread size and no one seems to carry that. Might be the first time McMaster didn't have the fastener I needed. Might have to just permanently glue the bed together or something
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