The Paper War

 After spending 25 years working for the government, the most annoying task was dealing with all the paper work. In the beginning of my government career, I was assigned a mail basket where I received my time sheet every two weeks, or a letter from management on policy or conduct. The most I would receive was maybe 2 pieces of paper per week. By the time I completed my 25 years, I lost count of what I was receiving PER DAY, including both hard copies and e-mail. On the average it would take me an HOUR per day to go through all the incoming stuff. Much of it was junk mail - personnel items dealing with minorities, updated or revised manual supplements that I had nothing to do with, notices on upcoming meetings, surveys on some issue of the day, conduct in the coffee room, or the need for more money to keep coffee in the pot, etc, etc, etc. Other items of more importance, included notices of due dates for some kind of report required from me, a drafted letter from my supervisor wanting my input, or some form in need of having the blanks filled-in. 

It was a daily challenge to keep ahead of it all. A lot of this stuff became so overwhelming, that I would ignore some of it. Much of it ended up in the waste basket. Some of the items required by a certain date were never completed, and never missed by those making the request. One of the most amusing forms was the Negative Report. The actual instructions for this report said, "if there is nothing to report use this". I had a good time with this form... Even the bi-weekly attendance report, required at the end of each pay period became a challenge.

In order to keep my sanity, I would utilized a sense of humor at times. Since my primary job dealt with contract administration, I had to document all agreements, contract changes, acceptance of contractual work, and notices of non-compliance. This was documented on a form called the Inspection Report. This form produced four copies, one of which would end up in the head office. Once or twice a year, I would make out an Inspection Report describing some kind of enormous contractual change, or a list of major infractions on a particular contract, none of which ever happened. About half of these I never got any response on. Of the others, I would receive a phone call from the head office wanting to know what's going on. I would inform them that I was just checking to see if they were reading these things.

Mike Burke

Eugene, Oregon