What is the most wasteful thing you have seen purchased at work

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 30/06/2011 - 02:48

The Rumor Mill

I know a low level manager that bought a set of expensive golf clubs with company money. He said he needed them on weekends and they helped him work harder during the week. This same manager use to always buy his lunch and dinner on the company card

flag this

At SND. Paying contractors a

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/07/2011 - 09:51.

At SND. Paying contractors a small fortune to construct a temporary heli pad for a visit by God (Bill Steere). It was never used as he landed at Manston and then walked on the Stour to the site.

siRNA?

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/07/2011 - 09:27.

siRNA?

HTS at PFE. Libraries of

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/07/2011 - 08:29.

HTS at PFE.
Libraries of compounds made on blotting paper.

The £12K spent on bronze

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/07/2011 - 08:26.

The £12K spent on bronze ducks at the edge of the pond/lake outside Pfizer B503? many years ago.
This sent a certain chem. res. member, SR into a rant any time it was mentioned!

Happy days.

Pharmacia. Enough said....

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/07/2011 - 03:09.

Pharmacia. Enough said....

Wyeth, all drugs set to

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/07/2011 - 02:46.

Wyeth, all drugs set to expire soon, huge pricetag and their new execs are spending money like a kid in a candy store, CTI, yes, another soon-to-be colossal waste of money

Medimmune

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 02/07/2011 - 21:46.

Medimmune

When corporate leadership

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 02/07/2011 - 19:43.

When corporate leadership visited our site we:

1. Put in a lot of new landscaping.

2. Repainted all the rooms they would be in.

3. Rented better conference room furniture.

4. Hired a luxury bus to take them in style from the airport to hotel to company buildings.

Apparently we must always protect corporate leadership from life in the REAL WORLD.

A Life Tech SOLiD sequencer

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 02/07/2011 - 04:36.

A Life Tech SOLiD sequencer

with all due respect to

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/07/2011 - 12:07.

with all due respect to representatives from other companies here, you are not in the same league as the now defunct (in all but name) Millennium pharmaceuticals in Cambridge. This company was like one of those gadget freaks with OCD who must have the new shiney model of Apple ITwat or whatever its called. I can't even begin to estimate the money wasted but the top two heaps of overpriced crap were....
1. ROBOLAB
2. FLIPR (any model you care to mention - MLNM had them all, all competing for the award for non-productivity)

robots, robots everywhere but not a scientist to be seen.

Dammit... "mEntioned" and

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/07/2011 - 09:51.

Dammit... "mEntioned" and "noteS"

PSmy captcha was "PPRT1" - reminds me of rude and amusing noises...

Too many to mention at

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/07/2011 - 09:45.

Too many to mention at Sandwich. Pilot plant is a good one, thanks. I remember the christmas tree very fondly. And the waistcoated ex-merckers always fail to raise a smile. But my favourite one was this:

The unveiling of the B500 sundial "sculpture". I think John Niblet had come all the way over for the ceremony, a bunch of us clustered out in the courtyard and with much fanfare the blue silk sheet was pulled away.

An embarrassed silence was broken by another senior director (Keith? Martin? Timwit? Can't remember...) starting to clap. We joined in, very slowly. As you do...

Some time later my then boss, who later appeared in an X-factor type jolly at Groton, mantioned that every time he looked at that f*cking sundial all he could see was a big pile of £20 noted, smouldering in the sun.

Happy days.

How about Beckman Coulter

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/07/2011 - 06:32.

How about Beckman Coulter buying ORACLE now that was a waste of money

Wyeth - not that Wyeth is

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/07/2011 - 05:00.

Wyeth - not that Wyeth is bad, it is very good! But consider the cost of the purchase, then Pfiring all those THOUSANDS of employees from both companies, and the disruption non-productivity [of science] of merging the remaining people together... VERY Expensive and unnecessary. Try inventing things on your own Pfizer!

Beckman. Just, you know,

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/07/2011 - 02:52.

Beckman. Just, you know, because we're legally obliged to say that once a day on here

thumbs up!