Leap day rant

What, like February wasn't six months long already? They had to add an extra day to the end of this hideous month? Sheesh.

At least it's Friday, and this putrid month is coming to a close. Between the weather, my yahoo cow-orker with the pigpen voice (yes, I deliberately set the hyphen there), and my ass spreading like hardened wax in my office chair, I'm thoroughly done with this section of the year. I move that February 2008 be stricken from the record.

Did I mention our deep love for the art of obfuscation and inefficiency here at Large Co.? Hm. Well, to cheer me up while I'm listening to the barnyard over in the next cubicle, I'll give you a little illustration of a rant I sent to my dahling sister (who also works for Large Co.) on the art of making a three-sentence change into a three-ring circus, hoops included.

I edit documents. Simple, eh? Take some words out, add new ones, adjust the punctuation, etc. Done. Easy enough for monkeys. The byzantine process starts when we get into the Review, Approval, and Print process, and that is where all common sense is abandoned and the players in the approval process go into full Rube Goldberg mode.

Here's one of the "reference job aids" for the process of approving the changes in a document:

"...the first T in the word 'the' MUST be capitalized, with a 0.25-pt line above the paragraph but only on the first page. Task 2: change the version number (unless it is a number ending in zero, in which case you must call the janitor on the fifth floor so he can assign a new number for metric tracking purposes), then be sure to initial and date the last page in black ink (but only on Fridays) make two copies (one in color and one in black and white) stamp the first page with the T stamp, sign it, then send a signed copy to PPD in the green zippered bag with pink bubble wrap, while hanging the original from the flagpole by the front door of Building 87 until 'notification only' reviewers have approved it by spitting a watermelon seed next to their name and title. Once that has been completed, create three folders on the LAN: one for Epluribus UNUM, one for the electronic version that will be translated into XML (which MUST be named XPL_2), and one named HISTORICAL for the retirement committee who will be responsible for printing the final copies and burning them in Large Co's Official Recycling Fire Pit."

You think I'm exaggerating, don't you? Well I'm NOT. Not much, anyway. And this is a gi-normous Fortune 500 company that makes some important shit!

Once, in a meeting, I asked a question about why we follow these overcomplicated processes, and everyone burst out laughing as if I'd started popping out armpit farts. I suppose if the process were simpler, somebody loses their job. And as H.L. Mencken said, "Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.”