RFI nightmare

[susandennis]

Today's corporate world: Company A wants to sell their shit to Company B. Companies D-Z, do, too. So Company B decides to compare and contrast. They send out a formal Request For Information (RFI), Any of the companies who do not respond do not get the biz.

The RFI's are usually anywhere from 5-30 pages of questions - everything from name of company to 'Describe the delta between alert processing and reporting and explain how it is handled with the disaster recovery plan you will include in Appendix A'. (These guys really know how to tickle with great prose.)

In general when an RFI comes in the door, it's a great time to hide. It's a butt load of work and generally the turn around time is a week or two. We got one last Thursday night and it is due at 3 p.m. tomorrow.

My job is to take the final response and clean it up. Fix grammar, fix tense, fix sentence structure, fix fonts, fix formatting, etc. Make it look pretty. This would be a big job anyway since the doc I'm given to clean up is usually about 100 pages and about 5MB's. But, this time the deadline is a real ball breaker. It's written by committee and not all of the committee members are full drinkers of the koolaide. Some do a fabulous job on time and some just think fairy dust is going to save the day.

So... as I type this, the doc is about half done. Tomorrow morning at 5 a.m. I will go in and start the cosmetics. I was at my manager's desk when we learned that, in fact, I would have 'the gift of text' waiting for me in my inbox after midnight tonight. She said 'so go on, enjoy your early evening and get some sleep.' So I came home and here I am.

The good news about RFI's is that they are a lot like final exams. There's no stretching it. When the proctor says 'you may begin' or the deadline comes, that's it. So this time tomorrow, it will be over. But, now, I think it's time for a little pre-battle rest up.

Comments

A Real Ball Breaker

[emjaybaxter.livejournal.com]

You do surprise me. First a penis now balls. Next thing I know you'll be growing hair on your chest.

Seriously unless the raw report you get is really crappy your day will probably go really well. I always worked better and got way more accomplished when a deadline was about to happen. I commiserate with you though on RFI's. We used to get RFPs - Request For Price(s). You would work like hell to get the proposal ready and presented only to find they really weren't interested in your company. They only sent out an RFP because they were required to. Qiuite often the company has already selected their supplier.

Take care and don't fret. Get a good nights sleep.

Re: A Real Ball Breaker

[susandennis]

RFP's are all pretty much RFI's these days and the drill is exactly the same. And you are so right about the deadline. Plus, nobody in my office can figure out hwo to make Microsoft Word sing and I can make it do four part harmony and they are alll very grateful. So it's good. All good.

But, I have had a rather anotomical day, now haven't I?

[pheon.livejournal.com]

Ah, memories. We regularly got RFP (Request for Proposal; interesting how the acronyms shift) for printers from companies that wanted to standardize on one printer vendor. Back when I worked for a small printer/copier company whose name begins with 'X'. But they were almost always slanted toward whomever the purchasing folks already wanted. For example, "...the printer must work with HP's JetAdmin", which had a proprietary, patented interface. No matter that we had one that was, in our view, better. There was no place in the questions to provide that answer.

[susandennis]

I think the RFP confusing (proposal? pricing? pickles?) is why they are mostly all now RFI's. The last question is, invariably, pricing and the whole thing is considered a proposal.

But, little else is changed. The first part of the process is to review all the questions to see if we can ascertain who is the vender of choice.

Corporate fire drills... you gotta love 'em