Let's Do the Paper Shuffle
In this digital age one would think paper has been relegated to a marginal position, barely used except for very official forms (passport, license, ID). We even get bills by email. So why, when applying for anything, do we have to sign in triplicate? We're still told to keep all receipts for five years. Well, I keep mine forever. The problem is, I'm running out of space. I used to put them in boxes, which have taken up a back wall in my storage room. Now I've been putting them in office file folders. A corner of my study is now being taken over, and the room isn't very large to begin with. I'm not the only one who is careful. A woman whose child was already an adult was served with a bill for two years of school lunches which apparently her child had not been eligible for. The good thing was that the woman never threw anything away and still had the forms which granted her child free lunch, over fifteen years earlier.
I've developed a phobia for throwing away any paper that comes in the mail. At some point someone may ask me for a copy of a paper any person in a normal country would have thrown out. Because even though every government agency has computer records, they never think in connecting to each other. So one agency will ask me for information they could have gotten from the appropriate office with the click of a button. Instead, I have to dig through boxes and file folders to find a simple number, name, or date. Frustrating. Because then you have to mail or call or make an appointment to send them the information. Of course, my time isn't important.
And when visiting government offices you may think you have everything you need, but you're wrong. You take with you the sixteen different forms and two ID's you are required to present. But when you appear at the desk, they ask you about form 25/DFG. "But that form wasn't on the list of necessary paperwork." "Oh, but we've been required to ask for it since two days ago. Without it we can't do anything." Kerflummoxed, you think that most of your life activities are already described in everything you've brought along. "But what is that form for? And where can I get it?" "That form is for us to be able to calculate your income according to seconds worked and you'll have to make an appointment to obtain it in the agency across town. Then you'll have to make another appointment with us." So a straightforward request for something turns into a three-month odyssey.
Deforestation isn't a product of opening up more land for intensive farming. It's caused by bureaucrats who intend to drown us in paper and fill our lives with paper cuts as we shuffle through boxes, file folders, and drawers to find form 3A from the year 1998.
I've developed a phobia for throwing away any paper that comes in the mail. At some point someone may ask me for a copy of a paper any person in a normal country would have thrown out. Because even though every government agency has computer records, they never think in connecting to each other. So one agency will ask me for information they could have gotten from the appropriate office with the click of a button. Instead, I have to dig through boxes and file folders to find a simple number, name, or date. Frustrating. Because then you have to mail or call or make an appointment to send them the information. Of course, my time isn't important.
And when visiting government offices you may think you have everything you need, but you're wrong. You take with you the sixteen different forms and two ID's you are required to present. But when you appear at the desk, they ask you about form 25/DFG. "But that form wasn't on the list of necessary paperwork." "Oh, but we've been required to ask for it since two days ago. Without it we can't do anything." Kerflummoxed, you think that most of your life activities are already described in everything you've brought along. "But what is that form for? And where can I get it?" "That form is for us to be able to calculate your income according to seconds worked and you'll have to make an appointment to obtain it in the agency across town. Then you'll have to make another appointment with us." So a straightforward request for something turns into a three-month odyssey.
Deforestation isn't a product of opening up more land for intensive farming. It's caused by bureaucrats who intend to drown us in paper and fill our lives with paper cuts as we shuffle through boxes, file folders, and drawers to find form 3A from the year 1998.
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