Before restarting for my next 24 month stint as general technical guy I had to complete some re-employment paperwork for the contracting agency.  I arrived and was seated in a waiting area surrounded by people ranging from those applying to maintain surgical robots to people that would be grocery stocking agents.  The paperwork had some interesting sections:

  • The papers were presented out of order and didn’t include a declarations section which would normally define what things like “The Company” and “The Contractor” meant.  So, I read the re-employment documentation as if I were literally working for The Company®.
  • The room next to me had thin walls and I was hearing a conversation between two people about how one of them wasn’t ready for the responsibility of being a stock person at Crate and Barrel.
  • One document had an explicit warning on it “This document does not constitute a legal agreement.  Failure to comply with this document will result in termination”.   Sounds kinda legal to me.
  • Another document contained the line “This document may only be modified by the president”.  This was struck through with pen as were a few other sections.  That’s  a pretty good work around.

I had waded through a morass of odd paperwork regarding patch application and sought the originator of the byzantine crap to finish it off once and for all, this ensued:

Me: Why was my script not approved?
Him: Your failure was in not getting a pre-approval signature.
Me: Wouldn’t pre-approval mean I was already allowed to do it?  I needed an approval signature.
Him: No, it’s pre-approval because it occurred before hand.  Approval would be while I’m actually doing it.
Me: How can you approve something while I’m doing it?  If you want, you can sit down with me as I do the work and countersign as I go.
Him: No, that would be far too wasteful.
Me: Ok, then what?
Him: Then you need a signature once your done to verify that you’re done as well as one stating you’ve completed it correctly.
Me: Two signatures, verification, that’s one; what’s the other one?
Him: Post-approval.
Me: *Silence*
Him: Ok, anything el-
Me: Sir, you or your department should be dragged before the MLA for crimes against English.  Good day.