It's 2026 and they're still rejecting email for security while asking for 500 page faxes. Hilarious and depressing at the same time.
The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner
381–390 of 510 posts
Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner
#382Karen 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 puniti…
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained”
Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner
#383Karen 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.
read it again
Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner
#384Karen 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…
What makes you think this is about her? It makes no difference in her job (I assume) if things go smoothly or not. It needs to hurt the operational procedures so it reaches people in power to change the rules to be meaningful. What makes a fax more secure than an email? Also how could she just decide that the disability status is accepted without checking the documents. That is just fraud...
man
Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner
#385Under HIPAA requirements emailing personal medical info is a massive no-no. Admittedly, this is for the patient's protection, and of course being blind is not much of a secret... but it's completely understandable that email would be strongly discouraged. Nobody wants to get in trouble for breaking the rules. Honestly, being able to accept a fax is great, although I would think any properly outfitted modern office th…
Reminds me of a typical conservation with my bank
“Hello sir, before we get started, for security measures, please provide this information about your account”
Hmm I dont have this on hand, let me log in to my account and look at the settings and read it verbatim back to you, proving I’m not compromising this user at all
“Thank you, sir!”
Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Unfortunately, it might also just cause anyone who wants to do good to leave, leaving people who just need a job and don't care about doing good. I don't think the author would have acted this way toward someone who said "sorry, I know it's a burden, I know it's stressful to be at risk of losing these benefits, and I've told that to everyone I can repeatedly." So how much danger is there really that the inconvenien…
> I don't think the author would have acted this way toward someone who said "sorry, I know it's a burden, I know it's stressful to be at risk of losing these benefits, and I've told that to everyone I can repeatedly." So how much danger is there really that the inconvenience of reloading the fax machine is pushing out someone who is trying to do good? It's not just the faxing that causes people to act the way Karen…
I hear you...to an extent. I just got off the phone with Comcast Business Class, asking for a refund after I had 26 hours of downtime in the past week. Not a company with a great reputation for customer service, and the agent I spoke with was probably not exactly earning a six-figure salary. He was empathetic. The outcome was unsatisfactory [1], but he was polite, he said he understood how important availability is my business, he put me on hold for a while, said he tried for more with his manager, and I believed him. That's all it takes, not like a master study in empathizing with your bitter enemy and de-escalating conflict. I'm mad at Comcast, but I'm not mad at him.
[1] A discount that was less than the delta between consumer-class and business-class prices, when the latter doesn't seem to actually be providing better availability lately.
Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner
#387Earlier 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.
Easy to say that when you're not the blind person having their disability benefits threatened periodically
Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner
#388Sounds 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 reads like an indictment of the government employee personally” As a government employee: it often is the employee personally. Not always, but surprisingly often. There is a type of mid-level bureaucrat who just can’t be bothered to make anyone else’s life easier, even if they can. It’s just easier not to, and over time that becomes its own form of malice. The tales I could tell you about security officers basic…
People given a tiny amount of power with no consequences for misusing it, inflicting their power on people for no better reason than that they can.
Government is parasitic, with no market feedback, so people that would normally get weeded out for being awful humans, for incompetence, for psychopathy of various flavors - they all end up with a long, well paid career and no consequences.
I find the story unlikely, reading more like a vengeful malicious compliance fantasy than how humans behave. In real life, a nasty Karen like that, after being inconvenienced or having their time wasted, would go out of their way to ensure the offending citizen was punished. In this case, they'd find a technicality or process to ensure the blind author lost their benefits, or was greatly inconvenienced to whatever degree possible.
You get fuming, frothing at the mouth inchoate rage out of people like this when they're directly challenged. They seethe.
They'd find a technicality, wait until Friday at 4:59 pm, drop a letter in the post box that declines benefits because the ink on pages 33 and 138 smudged some critical detail, or some other completely made up nonsense. If the author wanted to get back to baseline, they'd have to go to heroic efforts, either pressuring the tinpot tyrant government bureaucrat in social media or through journalists, or by escalating through the government bureaucracy and appealing to higher powers.
This has "and then everyone clapped" vibes. Or maybe OP just got lucky with a novice government worker that hadn't fledged into their full Karen powers.
Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner
#389Whenever I read stories like this about how hard it is for US people to keep getting the little they've been getting I think of people on the other side. It takes an evil compliance to be the Karen in this article. Zero empathy, zero compassion, you're a row in a spreadsheet. If they'd start caring a little and standing up to what is very obviously wrong, the US would be a much different place. Apply that same logic…
Maybe, you'd be absolutely rolled by fraudsters in the opposite case.
Re: The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner
#390Robert: youre website is among the most visually attractive ones Ive seen.