Zeons Corporation (ZEON)

[A Dinosaur]

They're a pain in several anatomical areas. They're slow to decide and even slower to pay. They limit the amount of profit you can make and audit your books to ensure that you didn't overcharge a penny. We used to have two people on our staff who did nothing but respond to GAO, DCASR, etc. In the 16 years I was there, they found three accounting errors, two of them in our favor and none of them larger than the amount of money WE spent to find them. Remember, the government will spare no expense to save a penny.

One paragraph in the standard 23 pages of boilerplate on the front of every contract required you to acknowledge that the US Government was your 'best' customer and therefore would always receive your lowest price. That means that if you lowered your price for a contract, say, to get your foot in the door with a new customer, you had to refund the difference on all prior government contracts. (I always drew a line through that paragraph and initialed in the margin.)

Dino