You know what really grinds my gears?!

[Steve85]

Yeah, not much love lost between proposal folks and contracting office. Most of the relationship happens at the technical level where that is very much a partnership. It's really the fun part of the challenge to structure the response and strategy in a way that makes you very price competitive with a get well plan. And for the get well plan to work you need that relationship for the technical people to put the pressure on the contracting office. What we do is largely "cost plus fixed fee" so you never lose money, just less fee and burn the 5yr budget in 3yrs. Rinse, repeat....

As far as private vs federal, the government obviously does things and has needs not found in the private sector and has a lot of money to spend. A lot of opportunity (including from personal perspective to be involved in so many different kinds of work) but the red tape and regulatory environment can be frustrating. It was kind of funny a few weeks ago, I was updating my boss about a project and told him "we were waiting to here back from the customer on how much they have to spend" and he lit up! Had to remind him this particular effort was essentially commercial and all the rules (well most) we normally live by are out the window.