Poo Poo on Small Business

As a federal contractor for a large company, I frequently get to experience first-hand the ridiculousness of small business requirements set in motion by Congress. Just recently, our client's Contracting Officer (also known as "God" in procurement settings) decided to make our recompete a small business set aside. For those not familiar, this generally means that businesses with 75 employees or fewer can bid. Since my company is much larger than that, we are prohibited from bidding - even though a) we have been doing the work for over one year and b) our clients want us to come back.

The only way we can bid on this work is through the graces of another small business, meaning that they essentially take over the contract and then sub-contract pieces of work to us. What I've seen happen is that even though the contract is designed for small business, it was originally performed by a larger business, so it is generally impossible for the small business to actually perform the work. Therefore, the small business is forced to partner with a large business in the relationship I mentioned above.

The end result, it you haven't guessed it already is that due to poo poo small business requirements, small businesses with no actual experience to do the job are given federal contracting dollars while they sub the work out to a larger company that is actually qualified to do the work - all while under the guise of meeting small business goals set by various agencies.

Having experienced this a number of times now, I'm starting to get resentful of small businesses "stealing" work from us for the simple fact that they are hiding under legislation with a flawed purpose. Because as much as I want to support small business, they are essentially taking advantage of poo poo laws that were designed by poo poo legislators. I'm not sure who to hate the most...

What ever happened to the most qualified gets the job?! Poo poo out...