Scott is a Senior Project Buyer with Exterran. He tells us that those interested in a similar career should have great people skills and the ability to communicate well between other careers, such as vendors, engineers, and project managers.
Transcript
>> My name is Scott Ross, and currently I'm a senior project buyer. Well, a typical day for me is I have a lot of papers on my desk from the day before because you're never caught up. And what I do is I look on my computer. And we have what you call purchase order queue where requisitions come in. And you look to see if any have come in overnight like red flag, they're hot. They'll go above anything you were working on the day before. So I will get to them and start placing, getting quotes if I have to, or maybe just placing the order because the quote's already attached. So I got to get to them because they're probably due either the next day or the day after as far as delivery. And I might have to do some overnights or whatever. If I get through them or if I don't have any red flag requisitions, then I attack what was left from the night before. Which is usually 10 to 20 e mails which I have to see if any of those are hot besides the requisition ones. So I'll look at that and then I'll continue on what I was doing the day before that's going out on requisitioning or have queues are new orders. Or I'll place orders based on what I did before. Or I'll try to reconcile invoices that are in my one queue where you have to get these invoices fixed, there's something wrong with them. The customer wants paid. So then phone calls, you know, answer them. But that's pretty much what I'm doing all day long. And there's enough of that that keeps me busy all day. We have laptops. And we did have cell phones for a while. We don't anymore. So the only way I can be contacted if I am is by the computer, e mail. So I'd go home, turn mine on, and leave it on in case I get anything. Normally, it's not something I have to work on right then. I've had some weekend things since it's a project, there could be some hot things. But usually something comes in and he says, hey, how about first thing in the morning you do this. While I'm ready, I may print it out at home, you know. I can even place purchase orders at home. I've placed rush ones at home. But I do take it with me. And but I like it so much it doesn't bother me. I just leave my computer on the table. I'll check it every hour if I'm home, see if anything hot came in. Sometimes on the weekend, I'll take home some work to do to try to catch up which I did last weekend.
Download transcript