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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

#301

Post by theK »

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…

So what is the argument here? That it is irrelevant because there is no critical mass?

Do you think the French revolution happened in isolation?

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

#302

Post by mrexcess »

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…

>Like, does this guy think this single woman is responsible for the kafka-esque trap they're both in?

If there's any class of individual in whom I'm willing to place greater than average trust in their ability to read vocal tones, it's probably blind people. Just sayin'.

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

#303

Post by speedgoose »

phyzome wrote: post #187
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.

I guess I don’t like their style then. My bad. Sorry about that.

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

#304

Post by [deleted] »

philipallstar wrote: post #221
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…

> This is a variant of the flawed "vote with your wallet" argument: One wallet changes nothing. Even 100 or 1000 wallets change nothing. It's not flawed at all. If the last five years have taught ideologues at Disney and in the video game industry anything, it's that you can waste hundreds of millions on ideology-drenched projects and get, say, 1000 concurrent players as your peak.

[deleted]

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

#305

Post by gosub100 »

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…

Then I'm guessing you don't vote, right? Because one vote makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

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

#306

Post by croemer »

bitwank wrote: post #264
bmurphy1976 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!”

It's not littering. It shows why fax is stupid and they should accept email. Littering has no such benefit.

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

#307

Post by card_zero »

Etherlord87 wrote: post #262
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…

> 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…

That's a fun fantasy, but I think in my case it would lead to disappointment. I regularly imagine that I sowed the seed to cause X thing to take off in Y community, but it's going to turn out that it was just the zeitgeist operating every time, and the true role of my mind in influencing others is only that of a conduit, or sewer.

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

#308

Post by tliltocatl »

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…

If you are being paid for making people's lives miserable, expect some misery in return. That's how it is.

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

#309

Post by crazygringo »

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.

Seriously.

The tone is so "I'm smarter than everyone else and I'm dealing with idiots", and it's just incredibly immature.

> to prove that I—a man who has been blind since birth—am, in fact, still blind

Plenty of disabilities can be temporary. And rather than argue about which are permanent and which are temporary and where to draw the line, it's entirely reasonable to ask everyone to just resubmit documentation every 5-7 years.

The author is writing as if "Karen" was coming up with these policies herself, and is choosing to spite her personally. It's incredibly sad. Karen is presumably just a poor woman doing her best to do her job within a system she can't change either. She can't personally make an exception to allow documentation by e-mail. So why on earth would you take all of this out on her?

It's just really sad that this person thinks they're somehow "winning" or "getting back" at the system. They're not helping anything, just spreading misery. Maybe some people read this and think it's a great revenge story or something -- I read it and I just feel pity for the author that they think there's anything good about the way they acted.

I mean, why not take a minute to think about the 30 other people who needed to fax in documentation that day and couldn't, because this one person wanted to jam the machine and use up all its toner. What if the author's sabotage was responsible for other people missing their benefits?

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