Punkie

Keep in mind, whenever you think too hard about these sorts of things, this is one of those operations that could apply to Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Many people make the incorrect assumption of something like, “They must have done some clever supply-chain wizardry," or “There’s a smart cost-reduction plan behind this.” When in reality, a lot of times, the actual explanation is something like a mid-level manager wanted a slide that said “cost savings," then procurement was pressured due to some personality ego problem, engineering objections were ignored, the math was never checked, and in the end, nobody involved actually understood unit economics. Maybe exchanging a $6 part for a $4 looks good in volume, but they only did this 20 times, resulting in $40 of savings which was erased by their reputation and incompetence.

I have worked government contracts. I have worked with shitty project managers. There’s a lot more of these mistakes than you realize powering economies.

One of the buildings around here had a piece of art commissioned (?) for their lobby, and it was “Georgia O’Keeffe” -esque. Not really an orchid, but an “abstract” of that style. Well, over the years, it sun-faded, and the colors that stood out it was pretty obvious what it looked like. Most common joke was “is this where my gynecologist’s office is?” Eventually, the building owner had it removed and replaced with sailboats.