19th May 2009

A gummint worker tries to buy software

posted in Bureaucracy, Funny, OmegaDad, Work |

OmegaDad, after watching a co-worker deal with the frustration of purchasing new software, sent this on to me.

  1. Ask ITS for new software. ITS will ask you to fill out “The Form”.
  2. Spend hours filling out The Form. You may need help answering some questions on The Form, but there is no form to get help with The Form, and no human knows the answers. (Certain questions were put on The Form as a cruel joke. There are no answers to these questions. YOU MUST ANSWER ALL THESE QUESTIONS.)
  3. Route The Form for signatures. Everyone must sign The Form. There are 1.8 million people employed by the US Government. Most of these people will notice that you have made some error on The Form, thus they will return The Form to you. Correct the errors and resubmit the form.
    1. Only 7 of the 1.8 million US government employees understand how to work the postage machine.
    2. 6 of these people are at Team Building Training and cannot be contacted.
    3. The 7th person is currently recovering from injuries received while trying to repair the postage machine.
  4. Once The Form has be routed for signatures, it will be returned to your ITS Representative. Your ITS Representative will notify you that The Form is now out of date. Please complete the New Form and repeat steps 2 through 4.
  5. Prior to approval, the New Form will be placed in a clearly marked 8.5 x 11 file folder. The File will be stored in a secure location. Remember that scene from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ where they stored the Ark of the Covenant in that huge warehouse? That it where The New Form will be stored.
  6. A Transient Form Specialist at ITS will be notified that your Form has been filed. The Transient Form Specialist will be instructed to email you regarding the disposal of your New Form. Transient Form Specialists are temporary employees hired through the Americorps Program. As such, Transient Form Specialists do not have access to government computing networks. This is a Department of Homeland Security requirement. Please be patient while the Transient Form Specialist finds a local public library with Internet access.
  7. Contact HR for instructions on how to transfer oversight of The New Form to the person who will replace you at retirement. If you wish to acquire new software in order to do your job more efficiently, this is the most important step. DO NOT FAIL TO CONTACT HUMAN RESOURCES FOR TRANSITIONAL FORM RETIREMENT COUNSELING.

P.S.  If you decide to pass this on, and you know our Real Names, please don’t use his, eh?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Bureaucracy, Funny, OmegaDad, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 3 responses to “A gummint worker tries to buy software”

  1. 1 On May 20th, 2009, Anne said:

    Brilliant! Applicable to us state government workers too btw.

  2. 2 On May 20th, 2009, Vinegar Martinis said:

    Reminds me of my last experience with customer service with a REALLY BIG airline!

  3. 3 On May 20th, 2009, lizard said:

    I imagined that the form would be stored like the interstellar planning department’s plans for a bypass in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in a basement, inside a locked filing cabinet, in a room with a sign marked “beware of leopard”

    or something like that. I’m too lazy to go upstairs and see the exact phrasing.

    this is hilarious.

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