Monday, February 11, 2008

Bureaucrats - 200. Rainforests - Nil

And my brain into minus figures, if not near meltdown.

What I should be doing is getting cracking on filling this lot out. But all I can think of doing is taking a picture and blogging (yes, I need help. In more ways than one).

You are looking of stacks of up to a dozen pages, from A to O, though with a few letters rating subsets from (i) to (iv), so probably around 30 stacks in all.

It all started so well. I stumbled across some nice folk who liked what I was doing and offered to help with the prototypes of the RE:tie for the show next month. So I went up to Brum to see what they could do and explain what was needed; we communed, and lo... it was good.

And it's all ready to kick off. With precisely a month to go. But... just... a bit of paperwork.

I didn't pay much attention as it was just one Excel document, but when it came time to address it (OK, deadline) it just kept on printing... and printing. No first born required, nor pint of blood, but amounts and levels of data required that go back in the past and project into the future that I can barely grasp the relevance of for this task, yet alone imagine how I will aquire... or complete.... ever.

Even the lovely lady who sent it to me was sympathetic, for she is but an intermediary working for the University and hired just to handle their responsibilities with such paperwork, as demanded from 'above' by... now who is that? A blue square with a circle of golden stars at the bottom of each page (only part-funded by, mind. Lord help me if I get another set from another bunch later!). Layer upon layer of 'EU-what!' to 'help' them 'help' me get a prototype ready.

And I must do it as I have no choice now but to. I am committed.

But sadly, I do not seem to have the luxury of a lovely lady hired for the sole purpose of filling such forms out.

Nope, despite writing that, the monkey is still very much resting full square on my shoulders.

And so, with a heavy everything I must now turn to Form A (i).....

1 comment:

Dave said...

You will probably need to be committed by the time you've waded your way through that lot!!

It looks even worse than the tax self assessment forms! Itself a wonderful example of how to take something elementarily simple, and turn it into a dog's breakfast of gordian knot complexity.

Good luck with it!