| So I've been writing proposals out the wazoo lately, that's not a secret. Though I can't share all the intimate details (not that anyone would care anyway) I do want point out some idiocy in action. The solicitor for this particular project has a number of options that they want priced as well. The thought is, if there is money, they'll do some of the stuff that they want to do after all the stuff they need to do is done. This is, of course, a pain in my rump as I have to come up with an insane pricing matrix..."If you exercise options 1,3,7&11 the price is...blah blah blah" Generally it's cheaper to exercise all or most of the options at once because I can use the same guys at the same time to accomplish the different tasks. Makes sense, no? This one particular proposal, because of all the requirements for testing and assurance, if they exercise one particular option and none of the others it's going to cost in the neighborhood of $80k, to install three switches. That's it, three switches, maybe three days of real work if they run into a glitch. We have all kinds of crazy documentation requirements and have to be on site for 30 days after install in case of a problem, which is where all the cost comes in. This isn't unusual when we put a couple of hundred switches in to a hundred or more buildings, but boy is it overkill for three switches. Makes me laugh. | 
