Posted on 06/06/2005 6:49:52 AM PDT by shellshocked
We all know that when contracting the government should spell out the terms of the contract. But, what we might not know is that there are people within our government who write, review, test, and approve documents beyond reasonable, such as for baking brownies or oatmeal cookies. When the politicians say they can't seem to find much in the annual federal budgets to cut, ask them to cut out the brownies and cookies. The following document is a military recipe specification and is 26 pages long. It includes references to many, many other government agency standards, including those of the EPA.
Brownies and Oatmeal Cookie Recipe, government style
Yes, 'COCOLATE' is misspelled in the standard document header.
OK then. But what is "Oatmal"? Just kidding, couldn't resist.
Hope you have a good Monday.
Oatmal are delicius.
The DoD has a long history of crooked defense contractors trying to get by with anything. For example, is it a chocolate chip cookie if the manufacturer uses a dozen chocolate chips in a batch of a thousand cookies. They are cookies and do have chocolate chips in them. One way to fight this is to write extremely detailed specifications.
LOL! Good one!
Detailed acquisition specs are a double-edged sword. They need to provide better guidance to contractor; Which can be written into the acq docs.
"OATMAL" are little critters, unspecified by the government. Tasty, though, I hear.
Take a sample (500 or so) of each delivered batch of cookies and put them in a storage facility under desert operational conditions for three months.
At the end of that time, distribute the cookies amongst a random group of enlisted personnel.
Ask each the question, "Is this an acceptable chocolate chip cookie?" If the positive response rate is not at least 90%, cancel the contract.
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