Today's Absurdity
Our front office received new office furniture right before the holidays. Six new executive suites, and four executive assistant suites. Plus side tables, chairs, couches, etc. etc.
For those of you who are new to this site, and might not understand why that is considered wet match material, I'll connect the dots:
Dot 1. The exisitng furniture was less than seven years old; some of it was less than a year old, all of it was still perfectly servicable.
Dot 2. The cost of a single suite-- perhaps just a single DESK-- could have paid the expense of heating the building our town hall was held in (see yesterday's post in the archives).
Dot 3. We're moving to Texas in less than a year as part of the Base Realignment and Closure laws, and here's the clincher:
Dot 4. BRAC law prohibits us from paying to move furniture or records as part of the move. In less than a year, we'll be selling the brand new furniture as "used" for pennies on the dollar through the installation property book office.
Our tax dollars at work. Thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands, because no one will say what the new furniture cost, and it sure looks expensive. A quick look at the leading office supply store's online catalog tells us a single office could cost as much as $2,500 to furnish.
Now, what do I tell my employees when they ask why there's no money in the budget for raises this year?