Here’s an email from one of our Hawaii patriots who is an honest and hardworking contractor. I’m not surprised by what happened, but then again I worked in government for 10 years. Behold: your tax dollars at work!:
aloha marc. i have to share this with you. i’m so mad i could SPIT!!! i got a call from a mainland company that does only government telcom jobs. they want to subcontract me to do a small wiring job for the IRS. the job consists of running two computer cables and hooking them up. i was told it was not to exceed $600.00 and that it would be fine to charge up to that amount. i would charge normally a max of $190 for that, but was encouraged to charge much more. i go to the IRS office where there are about 25 cubicles and see 2 or 3 warm bodies and it was NOT lunch time. i look at the situation and what they actually needed was a conference phone in the conference room. the wiring already existed. all i needed to do was a slight wiring change in the wiring closet to make that happen. guy with key out til friday so i say i’ll come back. also need to let the company i subcontract to know what’s up. i tell them they don’t need new cable as it is already there. he reaches the powers that be and they instruct me to install them ANYWAY and then they will have another work order issued to have someone come out and do the connection in the wiring closet. i am blown away. while there i find six flyers offering stimulus money to anyone who wants to: buy a car, go to college, install energy efficient home improvements or buy an electric vehicle, buy your first home, refundable tax credits for doing basically nothing, and a sentence that states, “even if you don’t make enough money to file a return, file anyway because you may get up to $1000 back”. i’ll bring these flyers to the next TEA party gathering for show and tell. amazing. sorry for the long diatribe but i am PISSED! oh yeah, the real kicker is that had i been called to complete this order by a private business, the cost would be $75.00. WOW!! feel free to share this. hope all is well.
