The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by dwedge » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

0x3f wrote: post #116

dwedge wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, this anger is entirely misplaced. I don't think this woman is happy to have to enforce this idiotic law and listen to angry people all day long I'm not sure I agree. From a shallow perspective it seems true, but in my experience bureaucrats fall into a position they enjoy. They often seem to take a perverse pride in this job - and it is a job that they, at one point, chose. > It's the politicians that people…

> in my experience bureaucrats fall into a position they enjoy. What possible kind of 'experience' could you have to judge such a thing, save for personal preconceptions and biases?

The only experience I can have is personal. In my experience of dealing with and working with them, only those that I've had experience with.

I've worked in a variety of places. Public sector, banks, places with higher and lower levels of bureaucracy. As everyone else, I've also been on the receiving end of dealing with bureaucracy. There seems to be a big divide in how long people have been working at places like that - up to 1-2 years, or 20+ years, and a big difference in the type of people in those two groups.

Assuming that it's a preconception and not observed is a bizarre assumption.

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

#262

Post by Etherlord87 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #208

Etherlord87 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> From the perspective of the effect, if you make life of an employee miserable, the employee is more likely to resign or ask for a raise, this does apply some pressure. Not meaningful pressure, though, at least for large organizations. This is a variant of the flawed "vote with your wallet" argument: One wallet changes nothing. Even 100 or 1000 wallets change nothing. These huge businesses and huge governments are t…

> One wallet changes nothing.

Once again, this is something I hear often and I strongly disagree. I'm lucky to be born into western civilization with the paradigm to respect the power of an individual. It seems to me it is eastern influence to speak in this dismissive way about individual actions. "No one is irreplaceable" is another common phrase. Someone says he decides to leave a community, and there's inevitably someone saying "goodbye!" with some equivalent of a mocking smirk.

I'm also lucky to have affected stuff myself in the past, e.g. I caused local government (~10 000 residents) to change. Actions of an individual very often do matter. It's just unfortunate we often don't get any feedback for our actions and it seems like they don't matter which demotivates people from any form of activism and puts them in this depressive, hopeless state of mind. Imagine how beautiful the world would have been if you had some kind of a debugging tool to inspect how your actions affected others, with a side by side comparison of your universe and some alternative universe where you haven't taken an action. This is also why I try to give feedback to people, send thanks to authors of free libraries etc.

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

#263

Post by gcmeplz » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:03 PM UTC

stockresearcher wrote: post #179

The ending is a little hard to believe. My sister has a job somewhat like this for a school system. Multiply the number of working hours by the number of workers, divide by the number of active cases and the number of hours each case takes to resolve. The answer is that a large number of cases will not be done by their deadlines. If someone wanted to send her a 500 page fax, she’s just going to shrug and work on some…

Non-consumer printers are also pretty good! I used to teach 120 students, so printing out materials for all of them for a week would sometimes be 1,000+ pages. 500 pages? I can't picture that causing problems for any org that needed to print things regularly.

And toner? I'd wager that the printer is going to use a print drum. That does have toner inside, but you'd talk about replacing the drum–not running out of toner.

Even consumer drum printers are pretty good nowadays. I have a Brother drum printer, and I wouldn't worry about sending a 500 page job to it if I needed to.

https://help.brother-usa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/183926/...

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

#264

Post by bitwank » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:04 PM UTC

bmurphy1976 wrote: post #245

ryandrake wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the perspective of the effect, if you make life of an employee miserable, the employee is more likely to resign or ask for a raise, this does apply some pressure. Not meaningful pressure, though, at least for large organizations. This is a variant of the flawed "vote with your wallet" argument: One wallet changes nothing. Even 100 or 1000 wallets change nothing. These huge businesses and huge governments are t…

Eh, it has an impact. It's not always obvious but it adds up over time. Use your analogy of choice: slowly building up pressure until it boils over or a small pebble starting an avalanche or whatever works for you. I don't necessarily agree with the OPs approach. He could have filed a complaint or done any number of things that may have been better. But in the heat of the moment nobody is making perfectly rational de…

Nope. It’s like thinking you can overthrow the government by littering. It’s just being lame. If you’re going to be lame to other people, don’t gloat about your lameness online. “If everybody littered, they’d have to do something about it!”

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

#265

Post by philipwhiuk » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:05 PM UTC

raincole wrote: post #204

pjc50 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I didn't say there is no compliance hurdles or the benefits are supposed to be easy to get. I said that the author insinuates the woman is actively, even personally trying to stop him from getting the benefits, instead of following a rulebook. Which is quite surprising to me, as my experience tells me most employees don't care about saving money for their employers unless they're very strongly motivated to do so. > S…

They're motivated financially to do so. There's bonuses.

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

#266

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:05 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #244

johnnyanmac wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No amount of beating low level employees will change whether they can accept pdf sent by email or not. I disagree. I'm sorry Karen here needs to bear the brunt, but if this kept up, at some point Karen's boss will take notice, And then it moves up the chain to someone who can affect that policy. Companies purposefully set us up to communicate bottom-up, so we can either play the game or break the law. >People who ar…

> I'm sorry Karen here needs to bear the brunt, but if this kept up, at some point Karen's boss will take notice, And then it moves up the chain to someone who can affect that policy. That’s a hilarious fantasy you have here.

I'm open to options. Not doomerism "the system can't be fixed" mentality. I don't like to think of myself as combative. Ideally we get listened to in council and they properly pull what strings are needed to help.

But this has been my reality. Employees can evangelize for months for better security, but then a (very avoidable) hack happens and suddenly the budget for it appears out of thin air. Being a nuisance (or letting nature take its course, in the perspective of an employee) is much more powerful to these kinds of organizations than words.

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

#267

Post by thomascountz » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:05 PM UTC

charles_f wrote: post #241

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…

While I do agree generally, there are a couple things to note 1. Author was made to pay for the bureaucracy and a rigid rule, and found a way to revert that. Now Karen pays the price for the bureaucracy. In the end Author made it a 0 sum game while there was not necessarily a need... and yet fair is fair, he was entered in the game without asking, and he played it. 2. > She has no power, absolutely no power I doubt i…

   This shows she had permissions to change the status of their file, and agency in determining if she should.

Concluding she had permission and agency suggests she had intrinsic motivation to not apply that agency. If we assume the motivation is nefarious, then the main character is the victim. However, quite more likely, she is also a victim of the system, whereby were she to apply her discretionary agency to reduce the burden on the main character, she takes on an equal or greater burden herself. Once the burden had already shifted onto her, she accepted that she doesn't have any options to prevent it.

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

#268

Post by dwedge » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:06 PM UTC

iso1631 wrote: post #111

dwedge wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, this anger is entirely misplaced. I don't think this woman is happy to have to enforce this idiotic law and listen to angry people all day long I'm not sure I agree. From a shallow perspective it seems true, but in my experience bureaucrats fall into a position they enjoy. They often seem to take a perverse pride in this job - and it is a job that they, at one point, chose. > It's the politicians that people…

Nobody enjoys working in a call centre

This is a bit of a strawman. Not all customer facing roles are call centres, and not all bureaucracy actually comes from above.

I'll give you an example. A couple of years ago I changed the address on my car but didn't receive the documentation and didn't realise for a few months. Then I realised the tax was due and I hadn't had a reminder or this paperwork - one of which is needed to tax it.

I phoned them and they said I need to pay for the new documentation because I had a time limit to report it undelivered. Fine, that's my fault, but I need to tax it now otherwise I'll get fined, and I have no way to do it. I asked her how to do it and she said there is "no way" she can tax it over the phone I need to wait for the documentation. I told her I'll get fined and she said there is no way to tax it over the phone unless I have the VIN number which I won't have. Sorry, there's nothing she can do.

I told her I actually have the VIN number to hand, does she want me to read it for her? Suddenly she didn't need it and just needed card details. The impossible bureaucratic process was suddenly gone now. She just hadn't wanted to help.

I'm baffled that people in this thread are acting like almost everyone hasn't had a similar experience at one time or another.

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

#269

Post by dwedge » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:07 PM UTC

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #200

dwedge wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, this anger is entirely misplaced. I don't think this woman is happy to have to enforce this idiotic law and listen to angry people all day long I'm not sure I agree. From a shallow perspective it seems true, but in my experience bureaucrats fall into a position they enjoy. They often seem to take a perverse pride in this job - and it is a job that they, at one point, chose. > It's the politicians that people…

"From a shallow perspective it seems true, but in my experience bureaucrats fall into a position they enjoy" I worked in a call center when I was studying because it was the only job I could get. Nobody there enjoyed it. Everyone did it because they had no other choice. It's funny, though. In another thread, somebody pointed out that they wouldn't hire a former engineer of a company like Kalshi, Google, or Amazon, an…

A couple of years ago I changed the address on my car but didn't receive the documentation and didn't realise for a few months. Then I realised the tax was due and I hadn't had a reminder or this paperwork - one of which is needed to tax it.

I phoned them and they said I need to pay for the new documentation because I had a time limit to report it undelivered. Fine, that's my fault, but I need to tax it now otherwise I'll get fined, and I have no way to do it. I asked her how to do it and she said there is "no way" she can tax it over the phone I need to wait for the documentation. I told her I'll get fined and she said there is no way to tax it over the phone unless I have the VIN number which I won't have. Sorry, there's nothing she can do.

I told her I actually have the VIN number to hand, does she want me to read it for her? Suddenly she didn't need it and just needed card details. The impossible bureaucratic process was suddenly gone now. She just hadn't wanted to help.

Was this woman just following the law? Was it the fault of the politicians? Me, as a voter? She had no other choice than refusing to help?

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

#270

Post by perching_aix » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:07 PM UTC

I found this story very surprising in a number of ways, so I gave some of the details a quick search.

According to the docs linked, there are two forms at play, SSA-454 and SSA-455. The author likely had to have an SSA-455 filled, as his condition is of a "Medical Improvement Not Expected" type (this differentiation does exist). Seems that this needs to be done every 5-7 years.

Both can be filled online apparently though, self-service style (not sure how accessible that is for him though):

https://www.ssa.gov/disability/review

Faxing and physical mail to a specific office seem to be additional options. Doesn't even sound like the fax and mail rule is office specific, seems to be a Social Security Administration originating internal policy.

Am I missing something?