Stupid micromanaging boss

In theory, I am supposed to be managing the gaggle of consultants that FEMA has fired.

My boss and I were meeting with them. The consultants were back on their favorite topic, how to get more money out of FEMA. We were talking about printing the plan they are writing. Currently, there is no money for printing, so they can go back to FEMA for more money.

The consultants start totaling up the money to print 100 copies of the plan. Forty black and white Pages, ten cents a copy. Three color pages, $2 a copy. Binding, $4 a plan. Then they talked about how they were going to have a collating party where all these consultants that charge $100+ an hour would get together and sort pages and bind the plans.

Now, back home, my firm is small potatoes. We do a couple of thousand dollars worth of printing a year. Still, we pay 6 cents a copy for black, 50 cents a copy for color and the printer binds for maybe $2 a plan. When you have a decent printer, it always looks better to have them assemble everything. To pay all these people $100 dollars per person per hour to collate and bind plans is a waste of money.

I said, we should be able to get lower and just have the printer do everything.

The boss said, no let them do it in house. It will be better that way. One, it is a stupid waste of money. Two, it undercuts any credibility I have. Oh well.