prone to enthusiasms….
I spent a career as a gummint bureaucrat. I have stories.
Most identities are disguised for all the usual reasons. Some details have been elided or adjusted for similar purposes.
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Maria, who answers one of our phones, got an obscene earful from an abusive customer yesterday morning. The caller had received an email from our office on Saturday, and wanted to know why someone was working on the weekend “if the State really has a budget shortfall.” Marie hardly knew how to respond; as far as she knew, the message was automatically sent by a computer.
Filed under Bureaucratic Whimsy Posted on May 20th 2004
Scott’s been using the app for several weeks, and we’d had some prior contact. Because his usage pattern is unusual, he finds different stress points than most users. One of his questions ended up in the online FAQ, and others have generated discussions with the programmers. Fortunately for us, he thinks like a beta tester, so he’s comfortable helping us solve his problems; this is particularly important because we anticipate other users adopting his usage patterns as they grow comfortable with the system. When Margie checked her voicemail on Wednesday morning, one of the messages was from Scott.
Filed under Bureaucratic Whimsy Posted on May 15th 2004
Both scenarios result in duplicate processing, and generate two billings. The users typically figure out there’s a problem when they reconcile their bills. We don’t yet know the scope of either problem, but the second scenario needs to be extremely rare to avoid becoming a major concern for a system with a normal workload approaching a thousand transactions each day. Scoping those details out will be another project for next week.
Filed under
Bureaucratic Whimsy
Semi-Geekery
Posted on
May 8th 2004
It’s not often I feel sympathy for Scott Adams’ idiot Pointy Haired Boss, so yesterday’s edition deserves a comment.
Filed under Bureaucratic Whimsy Posted on May 5th 2004
Although the department has internal reorganizations regularly, this is the first major reconfiguration of the external operation during my career. Said differently, this is a strategic move in an area where we’ve usually made tactical adjustments. It’s going to be an interesting year. I expect to see some modifications to the plan as the politics play out, but things will likely shape up pretty much as announced. Since my responsibilities are primarily internal, I’ll mostly be a spectator.
Filed under Bureaucratic Whimsy Posted on April 30th 2004
Janet had an explicit rule against talking to managers and analysts from other divisions if we passed in the halls. This tended to make my job difficult, so I usually ignored it.
Filed under Bureaucratic Whimsy Posted on April 28th 2004
From May 5, 1985 through March 3, 1988, my job title was Leadworker (it’s an assistant supervisor position, without enough authority) in what was then called Data Input. I mention this because the successor unit to Data Input was honored by the department yesterday, and because Joan is the current incumbent in that Leadworker position.
Filed under Bureaucratic Whimsy Posted on April 28th 2004
At this point, we’ve got a pretty good idea how we want things to work out, and Randi has three potential vendors lined up for the project. All three vendors have working relationships with our group, and each is certainly capable of doing the job, but their differing skill sets are likely to impact the project’s shape. Randi and her boss, Mark, have been sorting through the implications of that for the past few weeks. Within the analyst group, Randi’s been bouncing ideas off Alice, and I’ve had a chance to comment on (or snipe at) an occasional memo. She’s about ready to set the proposal to paper, and to officially invite bids.
Filed under Bureaucratic Whimsy Posted on April 20th 2004
Margie’s been shepherding the testing since February. She did OK, but there’s considerable room for improvement. She really doesn’t understand the logic of a testing process, yet, and hasn’t recognized that app development is as much a negotiation process as a goal setting endeavor. But she’s got this under her belt, and she’ll be more valuable to us for that experience.
Filed under Bureaucratic Whimsy Posted on April 18th 2004
My brother’s reaction to this plate–”You always said you don’t like the funny plates”–deserves some comment.
Filed under
Bureaucratic Whimsy
Life's Stories
Rant
Posted on
April 12th 2004
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