Death to “Procurement Professionals”

Using Edmonton’s still-under-construction Walterdale Bridge as a case study in the disaster-on-wheels that is the “Procurement Profession,” let’s take a closer look at what went wrong on this particular project, how this whole schmozzle is similar to other large scale projects, and most importantly whose fault it is. Without further ado :

As you can see from these photos taken in the late afternoon of August 29, 2016 – and from the fast-approaching date on the billboard as well as the two cranes still flying high around the twinned snowy arches hereaboveⁱ – the original timeline for completion of October 2016 isn’t happening for love or money. Not that it couldn’t have, mind you, the budget of $155 mn was perfectly generous and the initial project timeline eminently reasonable,ⁱⁱ but a year-long delay in the delivery of the steel arches from MOTHERFUCKING NINTH BEST KOREA (ie. South Korea) in addition to quality control issues from the said same MOTHERFUCKING NINTH BEST KOREA has put the entire project behind schedule and continued to create traffic congestion for commuters long past the intended timeframe, at untold economic cost.ⁱⁱⁱ This, while there was perfectly good steel to be obtained from Quebec and Ontario. Sure it would’ve “cost more” up-front, but you can’t fucking outsource thinking and doing anymore than you can outsource violence. At least not if your independence and survival are anywhere on your priority list. If Canada has any intention of maintaining so much as the pretence of sovereignty in the face of the almighty information superhighway, to say nothing of the azns, it had better smarten the fuck up.

While the newly headless design team certainly didn’t help any,^iv the evil monkey’s finger of blame^v deserves to be pointed fully at the soi-disant “Procurement Professionals”^vi hiding in the bowels of the City of Edmonton’s metastatic bureaucracy. In case you weren’t aware that such bottom-feeding barnacles – such scum-guzzling pigeons of the sea – existed at all, it’s probably because twenty years ago they by-and-large didn’t. They’re a recent, late-stage phenomenon, like the skin legions on AIDS patients, and equally representative of a deeper immunological disfunction.^vii Anyways, right across the board, these loathsome tards cower bravely in the nooks and crannies of other people’s underwear, hoping that no one ever washes them off into the gutters from whence they came, as they create byzantine rules for proposals, bidding, and consultant selection, most of which reduce to “LOWEST BID DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES” in one fashion or another. This is obviously the “buying IBM” of the construction world – that unassailable “truth” cum talisman of employment security – much to the detriment of timelines and budgets, to say nothing of aesthetics and generally all that’s good and right in the world.

But alas, this is what inevitably and “no one could’ve predicted”-ly happens when “The People” are in charge because “the power would simply be too intoxicating for one IRRATIONAAAL!11 dictator to manage”… or so the malevolent theory of “democracy” and “human rights” would have you believe. That such a wicked and spiteful culture could also pretend to hold science in any regard whatsoever, much less in the high regard it claims, and yet maintain such wicked delusions in the face of so much falsifying evidence, is all the proof you need that the human condition, broadly-speaking, is a faith-based one. And for very good economic reasons too. The masses are too busy keeping their sorry heads above water to read the classic texts. So it is that “The People” inevitably elect panderous, volatile, demented demagogues rather than submit themselves to their betters, who will in turn submit themselves to their betters, all the way on up the totem pole to the meritocratic King / Chieftan / Sultan / Emperor – the Cincinnatus, as it were.

Still, I digress, because long before the next century dawns and the new new Walterdale Bridge is conceived and constructed, the “Procurement Professionals” who were “just doing their jobs”^viii will hang from their guts like politruks. There’s not really any way around it. They were nowhere to be found when the original bridge was constructed and the pendulum of sanity has no choice but to swing back before the next one.

Blue skies smilin’ at me, nothin’ but blue skies do I see… ♫

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1. Each arch weighs 2`000 tonnes.↩
2. The High Level Bridge (yes, the one with those retarded “Don’t Jump Here” barriers) spans ~3.5x~ the length and was completed in the same amount of time as the new Walterdale bridge, though to be fair the High Level was completed in 1910-1913, back before the feminine/jewish mantra “life is the supreme and ultimate good of society” destroyed… you guessed it, society, which is weird when you consider that there are almost no jews to speak of here. ↩
3. There are really only two bridges that allow commuters to travel from the south and east sides of the city to downtown in the morning, and Walterdale is the more major of the two. Traffic disruptions having non-linear effects on congestion, even small construction projects disabling but a single lane of traffic can result in enormous increases in time spent unproductively sitting in traffic for tens of thousands of workers. ↩
4. Tom Sutherland, the brains behind Dialog, the lead design consultants on the project, passed away in April 2015 in a ski accident. The firm has since been described as an “airplane without fuel,” serving to affirm once again the importance and irreplaceability of strong leadership and motivated individuals.

   That being said, the new Walterdale brings more verve to Edmonton’s skyline than a thousand gaudy arenas ever could. Who knew that governments would do infrastructure better than “business”, “entrepreneurship”, “innovation”, or whatever “festival city” blahblah soup du jour they spend their days fussing about, y’know ? ↩

5. 

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6. All of which “Procurement Professionals” are hiding behind various scams under the guise of consonant-riddled associations, such as CIPMM, CPPC, NPI, SCMA, UPPCC, NIGP, etfc.↩
7. If you’re less familiar with the construction industry procurement process and more familiar with, say, computer procurement in large organisations, you’ll recognise the relatives of these “Procurement Professionals” as the assholes who know pray to the Great Inca every night that they won’t get fired for forcing software upgrades, buying IBM, etc. Yup, same parents, same dickwads.↩
8. Exactly like Georg Ritter von Flondor.↩