Way down

In order not to further hijack the Spanish Word of the Day thread:

Quote: Nareed

I'm still at work at 3:05 am with no end in sight.

The government got this bright idea about electronic propposals. Well and good, but it wants to encourage them. the difference is that instead of printing out a mound of waste paper and assembling it in binders, no you print out a mound of waste paper and scan it. Isn't progress grand? Oh, but wait! there's more! (or less!) The government agency then has to print all the files you scanned. So this wastes twice as much paper! After printing they'll assemble it in binders and file it away in some place.

For all that, the reason I'm still here, mostly, is that around 1 am, when we were ready to begin uploading, the government's servers crapped out. We're waiting for the site to come back up... I estimate at least 45 minutes of uploads...

That was in reply to zippy's query on what i was doing up so late, on the very early morning of May 26th. Here's the update.

We had until 9:59 am on the 26th to upload our proposal. By then the system was still down. We left work at around 11 am, and didn't return til Friday.

Today, May 28th at 3:40 pm, the system is still down. Considering it's a vital part of the government's procurement process, it's a really big deal. Surprisingly it hasn't shown up in the papers or the news. I've no clue what will happen to the contest we couldn't submit a proposal for. The law doesn't say. You can access the front page of the site, but nothing more. there's a message advising as to the fact the system is down, and to stay tuned for more reports.

Jeeez. That "bribe" I referred to in the other thread must have been deadly effective. Who's your competitor -- some drug lord?

Quote: Doc

Jeeez. That "bribe" I referred to in the other thread must have been deadly effective. Who's your competitor -- some drug lord?

I repeat the site is used by every federal government agency to publish requests, take questions and in many cases to receive proposals. Having the site down would require a really big bribe. I'm talking millions of dollars big. The contract we're vying for is a lto smaller than that.

This is nothing more than simple government incompetence. The site is arcane, hard to navigate and difficult to understand.

I was kidding, Nareed. I'm like that.