Judgment Calls

With our downsizing at work, one of my projects is to find buyers for excess IT equipment. A couple of weeks ago I sent a list of equipment out to a handful of wholesalers who purchase used office and/or computer equipment and asked for bids by the end of the week.

I heard from most of them by Thursday morning (actually I thought I had heard from all of them at that point) and they were all close and the one that won the bid was one with whom I had formerly done business and had a good experience. I told them that they were the high bidder on Thursday and we started coordinating a payment and pickup of the equipment, originally scheduled for Friday morning. Come Friday morning, the big Bay Area storms were in full swing and they postponed pickup (and payment would occur at pickup). I then got a bid from one more wholesaler that was more than double of what the next highest bidder offered. I left messages for the former company and didn't get a call back by the end of business so I sent an e-mail that evening and didn't hear back. I tried calling again first thing Monday morning, the date they had rescheduled the pickup and left a message.

At about 9:00 AM on Monday morning the pickup crew arrived and I explained that we had a problem because I had a much higher offer. Of course their position is that we had agreed (via e-mail, no signed agreements) on a price and that they would get the bid. I completely sympathize with the position but at the same time I'm working for a struggling cash-strapped company and getting $11k more for the equipment means a couple more days that people get paychecks. Of course, to get technical, the original bid request said the end of the week and we didn't have a signed agreement but that is getting into details. I spoke with the CFO about the situation and her sentiment was that we needed to take the higher offer.

So the decision essentially came down to honoring an informal agreement or keeping people employed a couple more days (and following instruction from company ownership). I consider myself an honorable business person but rules of survival came into play on this one and while it would still be a difficult decision, I would still do the same. I think this is a prime example of the Kobayashi Maru.