[Intro]

Document title:
The Cost of Waiting.

Prepared by Oliver Grant.
Procurement Management.

Distribution: Executive Board,
Risk, Finance, Technology, Legal.

[Verse]

Oliver counted every stall—
Twenty-seven mails, four rejected calls.
Lost analytics, half the day,
Overtime that had to stay.

Nine hundred twelve had bought the fan.
Delay alone had cost eleven grand.
One full outage, tallied whole,
Passed a million on the toll.

[Chorus]

This is the cost of waiting,
Every quiet risk accumulating.
Not the price upon the order line,
But the value burned by borrowed time.

Three low quotes cannot defend
The losses waiting at the end.

[Verse]

The board convened; Helen left her leave.
"The scoring model," Oliver said, "deceives—
Delivery's a quarter of the price,
Even where the delay defines the risk."

Finance asked, "Could this be rare?"
Mara set the failed fan there.
"Tie emergency thresholds to the load.
Name the suppliers. Clear the road."

[Pre-Chorus]

Legal shifted in the chair.
Compliance studied every square.
No one called the numbers wrong.
The silence in the room stayed long.

[Chorus]

This is the cost of waiting,
Every quiet risk accumulating.
Not the price upon the order line,
But the value burned by borrowed time.

Three low quotes cannot defend
The losses waiting at the end.

[Guitar Solo]

[Bridge]

"We need three quotes before the fire—
That sentence was our own desire.
But when the heat had crossed the wire,
Three quotes became the fuel, not firebreak."

[Breakdown]

Count the minutes. Count the load.
Count the services we nearly closed.
Count the signatures no one made.
Count the cost of being afraid.

[Build-up]

Mara raised the damaged wheel.
Oliver showed the private bill.
Three guitar strikes crossed the room.
The rising line refused to move.

[Final Chorus]

This is the cost of waiting,
Every hidden failure calculating.
One more risk outside your view,
One more emergency passed through.

Change the rule, or stop pretending—
The cost of waiting has no ending.

[Outro]

The board accepted the report.
The damaged fan stayed on the table.

The new one turned beneath the floor.

For one long moment, no one asked for a form.
