One of the bizarre things about working for a government contractor is how they spend their money. There seems to be the prevailing opinion that if you don’t spend all the money you have access to then you won’t get it again next year. As such the financial status of each division is rated as good for on track to spend 100% of the budget(plus or minus some ), ok for being on track to spend >100 of the budget, and bad for being on track to spend <100% of the budget. This always results in a “feeding frenzy” near the end of the year where departments horse trade what’s left of their budgets to buy coffee makers for other departments, followed by a “panic freeze” right before the end when the company realizes they might have spent the same money 2 or 3 times during the feeding frenzy.
One of the bizarre things about working for a government contractor is how they spend their money. There seems to be the prevailing opinion that if you don’t spend all the money you have access to then you won’t get it again next year. As such the financial status of each division is rated as good for on track to spend 100% of the budget(plus or minus some ), ok for being on track to spend >100 of the budget, and bad for being on track to spend <100% of the budget. This always results in a “feeding frenzy” near the end of the year where departments horse trade what’s left of their budgets to buy coffee makers for other departments, followed by a “panic freeze” right before the end when the company realizes they might have spent the same money 2 or 3 times during the feeding frenzy.