Where I work we have a custom software program written in-house by IT Buddy and one other (ex-)employee. IT Buddy is swamped with maintaining the program, with all the "hey let's try this" he gets from upper management. He had barely finished sending SC off to make copies of a brand-new form for submitting change requests for this software, when I went into his office.
I told ITB that I had a few ideas, and he said to go get a form from SC. Without the form, he said, the idea is guaranteed to be forgotten and never implemented. I went to find SC to get a few forms.
I caught up with him in Regulation Girl's office. I asked if he had run off copies of the form yet. He held up a single sheet of paper* and said "This form? We were just discussing it." They were discussing whether or not there should be a request form to be able to acquire a form to (anonymously) submit an idea for consideration.
Read that last sentence again. Go ahead, I'll wait.
It was a truly bizarre moment. I could hardly breathe, and was torn between laughing or crying at the sheer absurdity of the concept. I banged my head into RG's office door BANG and it bounced off the wall BANG and I did it again, and again, BANG-BANG BANG-BANG BANG-BANG. I walked away without a form (or a form to request the form), laughing my ass off. I continued to laugh as I exclaimed "My company is turning into Initech!" and then I LOL'd some more. I was afraid a few times I would asphyxiate from laughing so hard. NP was fighting other software-related insanity all day, and he was primed and went off like a LOL volcano when I told him about this. I went back to IT Buddy and he LOL'd as well and said I had to blog about it. When I got home, I laid this on my Darling Wife and she LOL'd.
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*Yes that's right, paper forms to submit ideas for software changes in an internet-based company. That would be, an entirely DIFFERENT form than the anonymous online idea-submission form we already have. The mind boggles.
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2 comments:
That's not why we wanted the form online, it was to better track issues and suggestions. Paper suggestions are more likely to get lost and miss placed. We maybe slow, but not stupid....
No, I got that. I'm totally down with the online form. It has a minor quirk of its own but it works. Management is *very* aware of and responsive to suggestions submitted online, and I dig that.
Example for non-fellow-employees: We needed a broom in the room where I work. We had one and it disappeared. We had another one and it disappeared. We had . . . well, a few more, and were back down to zero again. A suggestion was submitted online, and very soon we had a broom.
But the madness is that a) we have an anonymous paper form being generated to duplicate the function of an anonymous online form and b) we had serious consideration of another form, presumably with a required Name field, to gain access to said paper form.
It will surprise me a very great deal if this is not a case of temporary madness brought on by lack of communication between company management and the people involved. That it is madness is undeniable. My logic is irrefutable. You will be assimilated. We are borg.
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