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I should have qualified that my experience was from ~2001 or so. I guess it's also possible that the person doing the purchasing was incompetent, or didn't care

by pyre 14y ago

I should have qualified that my experience was from ~2001 or so. I guess it's also possible that the person doing the purchasing was incompetent, or didn't care about the savings because it wasn't their money.

ygra 14y ago
The latter may even be a valid reason. At least when universities here (Germany) are given a certain budget for certain things they have to use it up, lest they get less the next year. So there often is a rush at the end of the year to spend all remaining money on office supplies and other things that are not strictly necessary or need renewal, just to not get cuts the next year.