Yeah, as far as contract negotiations went, you picked the color of the car and got the quote from the dealer. The real negotiating happened when you handed it

Yeah, as far as contract negotiations went, you picked the color of the car and got the quote from the dealer. The real negotiating happened when you handed it off to procurement. Their job was to secure the contract with the terms and features you wanted, and it sounds like they did that. I think that's part of why so many programmers de-value the work of the back office (Legal, Finance, HR, etc). Good back-offices work in the background to get important shit done with minimal, if any, interference to the revenue-generating operations of the business.