Once upon a time, when military officers fucked up this bad, they would be forced to fall on their swords.
Now they get full retirement and go to defence contractors to make generous six-figure incomes so secure the contracts to replace the weapons they left behind to our enemies.
But don’t forget to thank them for their service.
The system is so fucking broken it hurts thinking about it.
I learned a long time ago it is not what you know but who you know. And I’ve seen it play out multiple times in my favor when my boss knew just who to talk to to get a contract.
But the power of this wasn’t brought to my attention until my boss messed up.
We had a project that was going well. We were funded through the end of the year but needed to get new funding for the next year from a new source. Not an issue.
We’ve provided all the paper work to the government for bidding purposes. We’ve provided all the information needed to our boss so he can talk about the project well.
Boss calls up his buddy and sets up a “golf outing” On the up and up, both boss and his buddy pay their own way. This is important when a golf outing can run close to $1000 per person. For 18 holes my boss and his buddy have a grand time. And boss talks up our project and how wonderful it is and how it will benefit the government. His buddy gives him great feedback and is very interested.
3 months later we get the word that we didn’t get the contract. We’re confused, we ask boss “WTF?” Boss asks buddy “WTF?” Buddy replies “I didn’t know you were bidding on *that* contract, all you had to do was ask and I would have happy to look at your proposal.”
My boss was going through a divorce and forgot to ask. He just presented. Yeah, that was the difference between getting a multi-year multi-million (small) contract. Asking the right person.
These companies will hire anyone (whether they fucked up or not ) to get access into the system. Access leads to contracts, which leads to money. Simple.