Stephen wrote:

> It depends on the outcome. If it turns out that there is a real shortage then
> its planning if not then it's panic.

No... If you sit down and look at how much we currently have, how much 
we're likely to need in the near future, and base a purchasing decision 
on that - in other words *look at the information* before acting - 
_that_ would be "planning". If you just go "oh, there's a shortage, 
let's try to make it worse" that would be "panicing", regardless of 
whether it turns out to be justified or not.

Planning implies looking at actual information rather than making snap 
decisions based on nothing.

> In Andrew's workplace I would hazard that it is panic.

Uh, yeah. I would hazard a guess that our lab manager has no clue how 
busy we are or how much product we typically use in a month. Hell, he 
apparently doesn't actually know the difference between an autosampler 
and a pump! (Based on a recent conversation with one of our analysts.)

[An autosampler being the robot that transfers sample material from the 
vial to the analytical system, whereas a pump... is... a thing that 
pumps liquid around. Given that an autosampler almost invariably says 
"autosampler" on it somewhere, one has to ask whether the guy can *read* 
either...]

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