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

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

#251

Post by z3c0 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

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…

It seems Arendt's notion of "the banality of evil" has culturally diminished over time. The sentiment you're pushing is the very basis for Sergeant Shultz's character in Hogan's Heroes[1]. It also doesn't change the lack of any route towards a higher-up, so the tired "they're just an employee" defense really doesn't matter when, for all intents and purposes, that employee is the only way for the author to interact with the bureaucracy they're (very obviously) being ushered through with zero concern for the high-stakes outcome.

In short, the answer to complacency isn't "more complacency".

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Banner

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

#252

Post by qingcharles » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #190

raincole wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The USA federal system is similar from people I've spoken to. They basically tell you most applications of benefits will only be approved on appeal.

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

#253

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

unsupp0rted wrote: post #170

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.

It is and should be an indictment of the employee personally only in the sense that the employee's tone and manner likely conveyed to OP that she thinks of him as a pothole or a buzzing fly: something you have to deal with, rather than someone who needs to be helped. Not that she has any power to help him really. I would guess OP is more upset by the dehumanization in her tone, rather than the dehumanization of the s…

I don't know if this is the case for this story, but some people who have pre-existing chips on their shoulder tend to interpret other people's lack of cooperation as "rudeness" or "annoyance." When someone doesn't bend over backwards to help them, that person ends up being described as "rude" when the story gets told.

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

#254

Post by aetch » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

raybb wrote: post #133

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.

Seems like something DOGE should have tackled early if they actually cared about making the government effecient. I guess making the lives of the disabled easier isn't flashy enough.

DOGE was meant to do the opposite

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

#255

Post by kevinh » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 3:58 PM UTC

newer_vienna wrote: post #202

phyzome wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Regardless of the condition of your life, harboring anger and malice never leads to fulfilment.

Sure, and if depressed people weren't sad, they'd be happier. 'Just don't get frustrated' isn't actionable advice.

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

#256

Post by richiebful1 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #113

I cant wait for useless jobs like Karen's from Compliance to be replaced with a highly capable AI that is tuned to think on it's feet (so to speak). Yes, I realize there will be cynics who say "The difficulty is by design to deny benefits", but I also think a lot of well meaning policies are hamstrung by the implementation (especially of software). Claude + Code for America can fix this.

AI or not, the government would benefit from investing more money in improving digital services. Merely slapping an AI onto the existing system will only make things worse. Try using one of the AI hotel receptionists right now to get an idea of what that future looks like.

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

#257

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

catapart wrote: post #119

TeMPOraL wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Literally no one gives a shit if you make their job 'harder.' They have an endless treadmill of things to do. Whether it's your 500 page fax or 500 people with a 1 page fax is of no consequence to them. They will work at the same pace either way. As they should. They're in this for the long run. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Which means all the author did was to fuck over a couple dozen other disabled people tryin…

the author didn't make anything harder for anyone because the "fax" wasn't ever even printed, much less caused a backup or even a slowdown at all. the giveaway was having the karen call back to request the person stop. the initial phone call undoubtedly happened, but the fax was consumed by the same systems used in medical offices all around the country, which means that it arrived as a pdf in some repository and it…

>the author didn't make anything harder for anyone because the "fax" wasn't ever even printed, much less caused a backup or even a slowdown at all.

You underestimate government inefficiency. You are correct, but I can also see a system that naively prints whatever is verified as a valid entry automatically.

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

#258

Post by catapart » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

noirscape wrote: post #149

catapart wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly this. I didn't put you in a bad job; you - and to a large extent, your society - did. you are the face of the machine that I am trying to deal with. if you don't want to be that face, go be the face of some other machine. but if you pick up a phone to talk to a client or customer, you are a representation of an organization, and you will be treated as such. fix you mind to understand that people are trying to…

Spoken from the pretty obvious position of never having to have worked a low-wage people facing job. Here's the real situation: the people that pick up the phone when you call them up aren't going to be paid much above minimum wage at all. They have zero institutional power to fix anything . You're yelling at people that, themselves, almost certainly are only barely making enough money to get by either. It is worthle…

lol. stopped reading after your first line because I've worked every low-wage, customer facing job you can imagine. shoe salesman, phone rep for verizon and then t mobile and then at&t, fast food, local diner waitstaff, office receptionist, contract installer, HVAC repair, cable service tech. that's a truncated list. I have the opinions I have because I've had those jobs, not in spite of them. I know how I carried myself, and it was a very low bar to reach. it's only when people don't reach that bar that I raise issue. because the bar is "know where you are, know what you can do, know what you can't do, and be as accommodating and responsive to the client/customer as you possibly can be, given your constraints." doesn't feel onerous to me. and in this specific case, I don't even have a problem with karen, per se. at least not from the content of the story. my reply was in response to other people insisting that karen needs to be coddled because all she did was answer a phone and this horrible man sent her a fax! (the horror)

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

#259

Post by guzfip » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

newsoftheday wrote: post #176

I enjoyed the story and yay for him then read after the end, "Robert Kingett is a Blind, and gay..."!?!?! What does what the author does in the bedroom have to do with the story I just read? Nothing. I don't give a damn what the author does in their bedroom.

People love to talk about themselves. The internet and social media accelerated the narcissistic character of our society.

I’m being partly facetious, but I have started to hear some theories from likely heterodox psychologists about new scute forms of personality disorder developing, particularly among younger generations. Not sure how much there is to the theory.

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

#260

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #142

Etherlord87 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine what would happen if everyone did what the author did. The system would collapse. I think you put a wrong diagnosis that the author couldn't possibly affect the administration. Maybe not much, maybe there was only a chance, but statistically he did put some pressure on that organization.

More likely they'd just cancel the benefits.

That politician would cancel their re-election. Assuming it gets that far. Even this federal administration can't handle the pushback of straining benefits. A local government stands zero chance with such a maneuver.