How to buy three chairs.
On March 5th I got a note that one of the computer labs in the College was minus three chairs. They were borrowed or mangled or misplaced or had succumbed to any one of a hundred other misfortunes that can afflict the modern office chair.
As the person ultimately responsible for the computer labs, it fell to me to order their replacements.
Now I should tell you: I had never ordered a chair before. Oh, I could order computers blindfolded, and network switches on tiptoe, and even drafting software while downing a dagwood, but never a chair. So each and every one of the following bureaucratic bungles are either beyond the realm of mortal control, or are entirely my fault.
My three-chair order eventually required:
- Two requisition submissions;
- One requisition denial for incorrect account numbers;
- One requisition denial for falling under the low value purchase limit;
- One requisition resubmission after the total of the three exceeded the low value limit;
- Three minutes of on-site visit by…
- Two office furniture company representatives to determine the correct chair model (I described them on the phone as “bendy, black, and with elbow platforms”);
- One discovery that this precise chair model was on back-order; and
- One last-minute purchase order cancellation because the purchase order had already been issued by a different department a week earlier.
The chairs arrived today, May 4th, just a hair under two months after the initial request. Now I just have to assemble them.
How long could that take?
May 5th, 2009 7:56am
Your post is funny, but what’s even funnier is the Friendly Green Giant furniture set. So awesome.
Rusty the chicken still scares me.
May 5th, 2009 8:41am
(Whoops. Geof, I think you’ve commingled the CBC’s Friendly Giant with the niblet-picking Jolly Green Giant.)
I fondly remember the episodes in which the raccoons showed up for jam sessions.
“Recorder Solo!”