What is procurement all about?
Procurement is a real career in the gov’t. It is a trained group of purchasers who review contracts with companies who provide goods and services to the gov’t at a specified price and quality. It can be anything from a shovel to an jet fighter. Procurement people must know and follow rules and procedures, solicit and review and award bids for products. There is lots of room for negligence, bribes, misuse, and misallocation. In other words, big money is involved and lots can go wrong. So it is a serious career and requires someone who is good with finance and writing, and patience. Lots of sitting at a computer, talking on the phone and reading and writing boring contracts. People get paid well for it. One of the problems I saw is that often, people who are not real smart but hard workers, get put in supply offices, work their way up to procurement jobs, but are not skilled in the business functions required to succeed. I know this sounds unfair, but I saw a lot of it. It is better to l
