A tale of Christmas week

[orangemike]

Last Thursday, right after Christmas, we had a mother come into our office to get her authorization for subsidized childcare renewed. She’d recently started working again, and we’d given her a provisional authorization until the checks started coming and we could set her up permanently. This was vital: the daycare provider, to whom she already owed

Comments

[elenbarathi]

*applauds* Huzzah for the Logical Mind; way to go!

[orangemike]

Working in a non-small bureaucracy, I sometimes feel miscast (aging hippie that I am) as the Rigid Bureaucrat Who Insists on Following Protocols, even though that's part of the job. It was delightful to find myself in the role of Guy Thinking Outside the Box to Help Taxpayer.

[holyoutlaw]

Good for you!

[capplor]

Can you come to Denver & teach our bureaucrats how to be human beings?

[orangemike]

I can assure you, as a veteran of civil service jobs on and off since 1975, that those bureaucrats in Denver are as human as me or thee; but they are undoubtedly trapped in the bureaucrat's dilemma, which is that you can get in trouble far more easily by violating rules and procedures, however foolish and obnoxious, than in any other way. To be a bureaucrat is to be hedged and hindered by a myriad taboos and barriers, many of which are or were benevolent in intent; but many others of which were deliberately put into place by legislators or political appointees who want to hinder the applicant or victim from seeking regress or assistance.

[wyld_dandelyon]

Yay!

[martyn44]

Every so often light pierces the blackest clouds and humanity has a small victory against the forces of darkness. Score one for humanity.