[Nursing Care: Manager] Air conditioner bidding, you say?

I became the manager this April.
When I took over from my predecessor and checked the priorities and the time required for them, the project in the title was the one that made me think, 'Are you kidding me?'

Before becoming manager, I was the nursing care leader at the same facility, so I knew the inside story well.
Since the facility is 26 years old, it's falling apart here and there, and the air conditioning is one of those things.
Heat and cold are matters of life and death for the elderly, so it's out of the question to leave them broken.
When I kept appealing from the front lines that we had to do something about it quickly, it came back like a boomerang, and that's how I ended up in charge of it.

Even when I asked the manufacturer about repairs, they said, 'There are no parts,' since it's a 26-year-old product.
So, I guess we replace them.
How many indoor units do you think there are?
Let me tell you.
There are 144 of them.

144?!

It doesn't seem like a mistake for 14.
After all, this is a facility with 100 overnight residents and 60 day-care users.
There's no way it's only 14 units.

Okay, okay. So I'll get some quotes... wait!?
Let's put ourselves in the other party's shoes.
(This is just my imagination)

That would be rude to the other party, wouldn't it?
I didn't understand what the predecessor, the headquarters, and the bigwigs were saying, so I looked it up each time and decided to hold a 'bidding' process.
If I wrote it down in detail, it would probably become a whole book (manual), so I'll skip ahead quite a bit.

I consulted with the bigwigs at headquarters and decided to bring in a design firm.
They must have judged that things wouldn't progress with just amateurs and professionals (air conditioning contractors).
We had the design firm provide a rough estimate, issued a bid announcement to four companies, and three companies ended up participating in the bidding.

Now all I can do is hope it doesn't exceed the planned price. If we don't get a successful bid this time, we'll have to start over from selecting contractors, and I'll have even more to worry about, like how to survive the winter in the broken areas (including living spaces). But I can't just say, 'Please do it within this price.'

Until the day of the bidding, I felt like I had done all the preparation I could with the president and the bigwigs, saying, 'If it doesn't go through, we'll do this and that.'
Since it was my first time handling a bid, what I could imagine was minimal compared to the experts, though.

The bidding scenario (cue card) was prepared by the design firm, so I followed that, but I was nervous the whole time because it wasn't just about sitting and watching; I had my own part to play.

The bidding begins.
The three companies put their envelopes into the 'bid box'.
Once they're in, I take the envelopes out of the box.
I hand the envelopes to the secretariat.
They open the envelopes.
I catch a glimpse of the price.

I look at the paper where the bid prices for all three companies are written.

We have a successful bid.

I can't let my guard down here.
I have the bid executor and the observer confirm the results.

The bid executor reads out the results.
'The winning bid price is XX yen. The winner is XX Co., Ltd.'

The sense of relief from being able to recover everything I had spent half a year on since April was immense.

We've managed to reach the starting line.
From here on, about 1,000 problems will likely arise, such as what to do about the rooms of residents during construction, or what about the dining hall? I'll be racking my brain over each one.
I'll try to worry just enough so I don't go bald.

It's a rough estimate, but replacing 144 units will cost about 100 million yen.
#I've become a 100-million-yen man

The bid date is my birthday.
#I didn't plan it that way
I received the most expensive birthday present ever.
#In other words, the air conditioners are mine

I'll be waiting for your congratulations lol