LOCAL PORCUPINE INFORMS SAM HE WILL NOT BE QUOTING A PRICE, NOW OR EVER

May 13, 2026 | The Less Formal Debriefing

Quillby, 61, says new fixed-price rule is “a personal attack on my entire filing system”

THE PROPOSAL ROOM — Quillby Pemberton, a porcupine and longtime owner of a three-person professional services firm registered in SAM since the second Clinton term, was found Tuesday on top of a filing cabinet, glaring at a printed copy of an executive order he refused to acknowledge by name.

The order, signed April 30, makes fixed-price contracts the default when selling to SAM. Cost-reimbursement contracts now require written justification. The administration cited $120 billion obligated on cost-reimbursement consulting contracts last year as the reason.

Quillby has not stopped sighing about it for eleven days.

“I have been billing SAM by the hour since 1994,” he said, quills flat with displeasure. “My nest is built out of timesheets. Literal timesheets. I sleep on them. And now SAM wants me to quote a price for a thing and then actually deliver the thing for that price.”

He paused.

“Like I’m a vending machine.”

“SAM wants me to estimate. Out loud. With confidence. I have been in this industry 31 years specifically to avoid doing that.”

OFFICIAL ADVICE FROM A PORCUPINE WHO SHOULD NOT BE GIVING ANY

Asked what guidance he would offer other small businesses adjusting to the order, Quillby sat up straight and spoke with the conviction of a porcupine about to give terrible advice.

“Ignore it,” he said.

Pressed for more, he added that sellers should “keep doing what they’re doing” and “stop reading SAM’s executive orders entirely.” He recommended against learning how to estimate a project. He recommended against any training on fixed-price contracts. He recommended against speaking to a contracting officer “for any reason, ever, but especially now.”

Over 6,000 companies last year did not win a single penny on their GSA Schedule. Several of those owners said the new rule felt less like a threat from SAM than a clarification.

Quillby was not among them.

At press time, he was mailing his 2003 indirect cost rate submission to SAM by hand, with no envelope. He has filed a formal objection with no one in particular.

Editor’s Note: Mr. Pemberton, asked if he had read the order’s deadlines, said he had not, and also that the reporter had been in his burrow for nine minutes and was now legally part of overhead.

Marjorie Halvers covers the business of selling to SAM for The Less Formal Debriefing. She has one ongoing dispute with a porcupine.

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