Some things just make you shake your head. Yesterday I attended a pre-consturction meeting for a job that I bid and won on 2/5/2013. Yep......the guvment finally decided that this job needs to get done.

Do you get to adjust your prices for inflation?

Should if he put a validity date on his quote and that date has passed. Although the guv wont let it be to much higher. You know, FAR and all.

Yes. Quotes are only good for 60 days.

Sixy days? Lucky you, I have had them (da guv) make me make a quote validity for 120 days. Lets just say they were a bit mad when we had to justify prices that were a good bit higher. You would thing a requisitions guy would understand that I have no idea what parts availability will be four months from now!

I just won one that would have been $200K thru a JOC contract. Instead it went thru COE and it's $327K. Not kidding either.

Surprised someone didn't demand a re-bid.

I made the mistake of correcting an obvious equipment specification error in the bid package and when bids were opened and I was the low bidder, one of the other contractors demanded a new bid because they bid with the faulty specs!! I still won the second bid but with the extra cost of rebidding and with everyone knowing what I bid the first time based on the new specs, I had to eat something, somewhere to be competitive.
I learned my lesson and realized that being honest is not necessarily the best policy. Still be honest, just do it quietly and then charge for extras based on change orders.

It's funny, took me 7 months to get 9 fire extinguisher brackets hung in my storage areas. A drill an two screws, I could have had it done myself (if allowed) in about 3 hrs.

I wanted the water filter to 2 sinks in our bathroom replaced because the water in those 2 stinks real bad. I was told I'd have to buy the filter. I told 'em that if I bought it I'd replace it. NOPE....that's their union job. I'm supposed to furnish them a filter to change. WTF?