Comments on: Being Anti-Idiotarian in a Large Company

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:57:51 +0000

“program dollars” versus other uses that Harry may have had urgent need for and was unable to fund because of obscure and arbitrary MBOs people in higher places had deemed important. It would have also helped if there were a more rational process for assigning budget other than “80% of what you spent last year”…

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:31:40 +0000

I actually think its a good idea that Harry’s money got reallocated. In that way the company can get more leverage out of the its program dollars by shifting it to where its needed most.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:41:35 +0000

send a cashier check to yours truly!

By: KP

KP — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:38:44 +0000

Any advice on how us corporate slogs can quickly spend the money left in our budgets??

;o)

By: Greg Pilling

Greg Pilling — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 14:44:21 +0000

I used to sell to municipal and state governments and federal agencies. They had an annoying habit of not wanting to spend any money until their 4th quarter, and then to spend it all in a big rush, often foolishly. As I recall, the good time to see a Federal government buyer was in October, reight before the end of their fiscal year. I agree with Rob, this wasteful way is ridiculous. We need open-source government!

By: PR

PR — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 02:06:58 +0000

…or blog about it.

By: Zoli Erdos

Zoli Erdos — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:26:13 +0000

Harry will either “break in” and become a “good corporate soldier” in 2-3 years or will leave for a much smaller business

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:31:32 +0000

The government is just as irresponsible, but sometimes in the other way. About 10 years ago, I was given responsibility over my first budget of about $300K as a junior officer. I took all of this “duty to the taxpayer” stuff seriously and my goal that year was to run the ship better than ever before, but at a lower overall cost. Ended up doing that and being about 20% under previous budgets. When it came to the Q4 review, instead of being congratulated, I was warned that my performance report would be impacted if I didn’t spend that money in the next four weeks.

When I think about that as a civilian taxpayer now, I’m livid. The 20% savings equated to about $60K. Based on median income, that is roughly ALL of the federal tax paid by 3 people … which was spent so it wouldn’t be lost the following year.

The budgeting process is never easy and many government agencies uses a historical spend based budget planning process. Whatever you spent last year, must be what you need to spend this year. It’s why I seldom believe that tax cuts will be as painful to government agencies as some make them out to be.

I don’t think there is a simple answer in the corporate or government sector, but click through line item visibility is one necessary ingredient. Right now it’s a bear to pull out allocated and spent money in many places.

By: someone

someone — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 11:17:42 +0000

startups can make equally bone-headed moves. say harry has done all that. then the chairman and the CEO decide that it’s important to hire an expensive consultant to “advise” them on all of the skills they were ostensibly hired to employ. and then the chairman decides it’s imperative that he goes on a junket on the company’s dime. business class. to africa. meanwhile, the CEO decides to hire some new staff, none of whom are revenue-generating and whose costly work, in fact, needs to be subsidized. suddenly, harry, the sole revenue generator in the business, is screwed because the startup’s overhead exploded and he had no control over it.

By: vinnie mirchandani

vinnie mirchandani — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 04:40:46 +0000

Jeff, as you know I work with a number of large companies and save them lots of money. Breaks my heart to then see them waste it in other ways…remind me to tell you about a particular client’s reaction once we presnted our findings about a number with 8 zeros in tech savings…