> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lyle E. Browning [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, August 23, 1999 11:11 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: what we do
>
> David Babson wrote:
>
> > Yet, it's a human situation--you're the archaeologist for a CRM firm.
> You
> > have areas of knowledge and ignorance, undoubtedly following
> > your professional interests quite closely.  You have to become an
> "instant
> > expert" (excavations start next week, and you have to hire a crew and
> > arrange for field logistics) on a site/part of a site/a survey tract
> where
> > your company has landed a contract.  And, there's not enough money to
> hire
> > consultants, or that money comes right out of the budget that pays your
> > salary, funds your crews, contributes to company overhead (profits) from
> > your division.
> >
>
> Here we disagree totally. I cannot see how any reasonably sentient
> archaeologist would bid a project about which they knew nothing and
> blithely
> assume they could handle it all. Phase I surveys to locate sites are one
> thing. Phase II and III work which focuses on specific sites is quite
> another.
>
> Underbidding a project based on ignorance of a site is no excuse. Failure
> to
> recognize that one's own expertise may be lacking is no excuse. If there's
> enough money to hire a CRM firm in the first place, there's enough money
> to do
> it right. Arrogance and ignorance are the handmaidens of bad CRM.
>
>
        [Neal Hitch]

        How can you disagree about the truth.  I am amazed at what
archeological companies bid on or try and sell me on the work that they can
do.  I wrote an RFP specifically calling for a historic archaeologist with a
PhD and a publishing history and still had pre-historic companies bid on the
job and get upset that they did not win.  When I worked in CRM (for a young
but very good firm) we bid on everything we could (my perception not company
policy).  Often I thought I was not prepared (i.e.. Spanish missions) but
figured if we won the contract I could afford to read enough secondary
sources to become what Babson calls an "instant expert."  Hey, before you
start to judge, I'm just being open.  I know I am not an isolated case
because I have worked with and have friends in a lot of firms.

        One thought about 106 is that contract decisions are up to the
federal agency involved.  As a firm or as an archaeologist you must try and
develop relationships with the people contracting the work so that when you
have questions about the work they are doing they view your opinion as a
qualified statement.  I know  archaeologists who if they called me and said
"Hey, I think that you need to rethink what you are planning/bidding" I
would listen and respond.  I also know archaeologists who I think are
golddiggers and if they called me I wouldn't listen.