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The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

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Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

#151

Post by RobotToaster »

raincole wrote: post #126

> It is a letter that arrives every few years from the government, asking a question that is medically absurd and philosophically insulting: "Are you still disabled?" It... doesn't sound like an absurd practice at all. There are curable disabilities. And what's curable changes along with the advance of technology. It sounds about right to review the situation every a few years.

> There are curable disabilities.

True, but it should be obvious in 99% of cases if a condition is lifelong.

>And what's curable changes along with the advance of technology.

Very rarely tbh.

I can't think of a single lifelong condition that was cured in the last decade.

Even then it should be trivial to only review cases when a cure is available, by searching the database for people with that condition.

Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

#152

Post by breppp »

Although I didn't enjoy this fiction of "angry man against system" genre, he did touch an important truth about the fax machine, which this story doesn't properly expand on.

A fax is very useful to bureaucracies because it is hard to prove a fax was ever sent or received at all. It might never arrived and wasn't retried, might have been printed as empty pages, maybe someone else picked it up.

This is why it is so useful when someone on the other end wants to delay (the equivalent of closing a bug as can't reproduce). This is why governments like faxes and why this story is so unlikely (no chance anyone will call back in that event)

Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

#153

Post by pclmulqdq »

afro88 wrote: post #101
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"cut those cops strangling that guy over bootleg smokes some slack, they have a tough job" These sorts of don't hate the cogs hate the machine takes are worthless because they create an instant exploit where the machine can be as bad as it wants as long as it hides behind the cogs.

What good does hating the cogs do though? Make noise to the people who can change the machine.

When you hate the machine as a whole, the cogs are also in scope.

Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

#155

Post by WarmWash »

renewiltord wrote: post #79
ramon156 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. There's something about most cultures that I am slowly am realizing; we always know how to complain and shift the responsibility. And no, you're not immune to this. You're not immune to anything, really. Medical departments aren't about helping you out anymore. When you work in a hospital, you do what your rule book says. If someone doesn't have their paperwork available, you cannot help them. That's your boss'…

> Why can you not just give them their pills and charge them the real amount. Why do we need this bureaucratic hell and pretend we're here to help people I can get my drugs from people like this but you can’t because you prefer this system. Having chosen a system with heavy import controls and an overbearing government regulatory agency, all of which you are likely a huge fan of, there’s not much point to being upset…

We could have great public systems, but their is a fundamental problem that perpetually keeps these systems unstable:

The people who pay the most for these systems use them the least, and the people who pay the least for them use them the most.

At best you can have a system where the people paying for it are respected for their contribution (and likewise feel good about it), and the people using it are ever grateful for what their receive (and can shamelessly feel good about it).

But man, have you ever dealt with average humans?

Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

#156

Post by mmcwilliams »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #33

Karen woke up this morning in her run down, rented flat. She briefly looks at the collections letter that showed up yesterday due to an unaffordable repair she had to pay for on her credit card. Another letter from her ex-partner's lawyer. As she rushes out the door (she spilled coffee on her one nice sweater, her favorite) her mom flashes through her mind... "What about mum?". She arrives at the office. It is an opp…

Seems potentially libelous to claim this person isn't actually blind.

Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

#157

Post by jerf »

tyingq wrote: post #60
miki123211 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, as a user with 10k+ karma on HN, can testify that the author has all the hallmarks of a real blind person (active in blind communities and so on). I don't have any evidence suggesting that the author ever engaged in deceptive behavior. In other words, my P(real) > 0.99.

Sure. He's real. ̶̶̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶:̶ "Robert Kingett is a Blind, and gay, obscure writer. He writes fiction where Disabled heroes get their happy ending..." Edit: Yep, appears I have it wrong. Thanks for the pointers. The non-fiction tag missed my eye.

I don't have a word for this, but this falls under the class of things where even if the author who wrote this is did not personally do this and is making it up, it has absolutely 100% happened somewhere, many times over.

For example, it's the same for the DailyWTF... I remember how that would be posted here or on a programming reddit and half the comments would be about how it hadn't happened, and you know, maybe whoever wrote those particular words is just making it up, but I've seen enough just in my little tiny slice of human behavior phase space to know that either the story or something indistinguishably close to it most certainly has happened somewhere, at some time.

Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

#158

Post by axus »

nxobject wrote: post #115
wholinator2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree wholeheartedly! This is exactly what i was thinking the entire time. Like, does this guy think this single woman is responsible for the kafka-esque trap they're both in? Will the 0.5% uptick in toner cost for the year cause the administration to rethink their requirements? He's just taken the immense weight and pain he holds for this process, undeservedly, and placed it upon another undeserving person, then l…

As an alternate framing, with the paperwork be giving her what she needs to go to her boss and escalate, and their boss as needed - the paperwork as a magic ticket for everyone to advocate. To qualify that, the fax is a limited resource, and I'd be concerned about how what other things the fax might be needed for to help other people in a timely manner...

Perhaps the fax-related expenses would be the magic ticket their boss needed to justify security scanning of emails with PDFs. I just listened to Trump brag for ten minutes about replacing the thousand-dollar signing pens.

The post is tagged non-fiction, but it ignores the option to "Complete your Disabilty Update Report Online (https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/text-cdrs-ussi.htm), which I found after following the link in the first sentence.

The form is an embedded iFrame from "Adobe Acrobat Sign", supposedly pure Javascript . It would be a bigger story if this form were not accessible to the disabled.

The form includes a place to attach two PDF, text, or image formats. "Attachments are limited to 5MB and 25 pages".

Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

#160

Post by 0x3f »

breppp wrote: post #152

Although I didn't enjoy this fiction of "angry man against system" genre, he did touch an important truth about the fax machine, which this story doesn't properly expand on. A fax is very useful to bureaucracies because it is hard to prove a fax was ever sent or received at all. It might never arrived and wasn't retried, might have been printed as empty pages, maybe someone else picked it up. This is why it is so use…

Surely some of the online fax services are offering retention and certification of what's sent? Seems like free money to add a checkbox at checkout.
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