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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

#181

Post by skyyler »

0x3f wrote: post #160
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.

Yes, breppp is completely incorrect. Faxes are used specifically because they can do transmission verification and document evidence of verified successful transmission.

Online fax services that are used by medical or government offices almost always generate digital logs that track when a document was sent, who sent it, and who received it, for regulatory purposes

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

#182

Post by watwut »

Etherlord87 wrote: post #112
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…

I see this type of an argumentation very often and I strongly disagree. You're removing all responsibility from an actor that is a part of a bigger thing. Imagine if you slapped someone on his hand for doing something wrong, and he or someone else argued what you did is wrong because it wasn't that hand that has offended. I'm an antitheist but the Bible (gospels) put it well "The student is not above his master" [tra…

No amount of beating low level employees will change whether they can accept pdf sent by email or not.

And also, they are not supposed to use their intuitive ideas about what is and what is not dangerous use of software. When they do use their intuitive ideas, hacks happen. Karen here doing what she was told and accepting only formats that her organization security team told her to do is Karen doing the correct thing.

We are on HN. People who are responsible for overreaching unreasonable security rules ... are basically us. And we are all paid way more then Karen, but are the first to call Karen an idiot when the hack happens. Karen does not know why pdf is different from doc or whatever. Nor is she required to know.

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

#183

Post by the__alchemist »

wholinator2 wrote: post #45
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…

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…

Other responders have replied well, so I will offer a slight augmentation: Yes, this is bad outcome for the bureaucrat, through no mistake of her own. A wrong has been committed against her - but not by the author - by her employer, and the system which employs her and sets these regulations. They cannot (Although they will if asked) claim ignorance or innocence: It is their fault alone for this experience.

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

#184

Post by phyzome »

newer_vienna wrote: post #54

I cannot get over the malice seeping through this author's writing. Happiness does not come from making others miserable.

You're getting a window into just how much it sucks to be disabled and then have extra burdens put on you. I don't know this author, but I know someone else in a similar position and I absolutely understand where this anger comes from.

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

#185

Post by looneysquash »

When the government imposes these rules, this is an outcome they callously ignore.

Sure, we can rightly criticize the author for their abuse towards this working class government employee.

But then to some degree we're guilty of what the author is guilty of. We're fighting each other.

Let's focus our outrage on the people who made these rules. And that keep making more rules like them.

Not that we shouldn't have rules to prevent "welfare fraud". But that it's unacceptable for such rules to make it harder to receive benefits that you're entitled to.

And for many of our representatives, making it more difficult to receive benefits isn't just a side effect of bad anti-fraud policy, it's actually the point.

Let's focus our outrage on them and demand change.

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

#186

Post by phyzome »

spicymaki wrote: post #51

Aside from the AI writing the blog itself seems to have a false timeline. It says there are posts from April 2017, but the domain has only been up for a year. There is all of this promotion about books, podcasts, volunteering to support the author. What is this about?

People migrate their blogs.

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

#187

Post by phyzome »

speedgoose wrote: post #34

I don’t like the AI writing style anymore. It’s very readable and it has great words, but it’s lacking imperfections. Like a raytraced 3D render of mathematically perfect shapes.

I don't think this author uses LLMs. I follow them online and they hate generative AI.

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

#188

Post by [deleted] »

tyingq wrote: post #18

Sounds like it's not real but... It reads like an indictment of the government employee personally, rather than the rules and constraints that employee is forced to use. Probably fair to comment on the interaction, whether the person was rude, and so on. But blaming them for not accepting email is kind of silly. They are not empowered to do that kind of thing.

[deleted]

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

#189

Post by jollyllama »

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…

We don't have to assume there is a good guy in the story. The resulting piece that the author made, due to the vitriolic tone, is not qualitatively different than a troll post designed to paint the disabled as stunted and bitter.

Nevertheless, assuming it's true, the author did expose the lie of Karen or rather the system. It wasn't the real evidence that changed her mind, according to her comments, it was the punitive arm-twisting applied to them by the DoS of the fax machine.

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

#190

Post by pjc50 »

raincole wrote: post #137
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…

> She was talking to a blind man living below the poverty line. She assumed that "fax it" was an impossible hurdle. She assumed I would have to find a ride to a library, pay twenty cents a page, and struggle with a physical machine I couldn't read. She was counting on the friction of the physical world to make me give up. Does this author live in a country where the government staff has incentive to reject the dole?…

Really? Are you sure?

The UK disability system is notorious for compliance hurdles. Quite a lot of people including relatives of mine have had claims denied by the bureaucracy, applied for review (which is done by an external judge), and had it reinstated.

It was even worse when the system was outsourced to ATOS.

I've also heard stories about the Norwegian NAV. I don't think this is confined to any one country.

It's not hard to understand. There's constant political budget pressure, and narratives about "scoungers". So the system gets set to default-deny and told to limit the cost of claims by any means necessary.

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