Dear Bureaucrat, my job wants me to lie

https://www.federaltimes.com/your-career/the-bureaucrat/2019/03/07/dear-bureaucrat-my-job-wants-me-to-lie/

by David_Reed • 7 years ago

587 436 7 years ago

maxxxxx2• 7 years ago

Seems this is common with a lot of processes that require review by others. On the surface this sounds great and thorough but the reviewers actually need the qualifications and time to review things properly. I have done plenty of code and spec reviews where I really didn’t understand what’s going on and certainly didn’t have time to get up to speed. So you nitpick a few little things or just approve and move on with your real work.

hef19898• 7 years ago

Looks like every "four eye approval" process I know. In the end just everything is confirmed out of pressure to have a clean queue. And let's be honest, just by looking at individual requests a person can never have the necessary context. Needless to mention that four eye approval of that kind isn't even a legal requirement under SOX.

closeparen• 7 years ago

A “this is not categorically insane” stamp is still better than the absence of such a review. It doesn’t have to be “I stake my reputation on an ironclad guarantee that this will perform perfectly in all circumstances.”

deathanatos4• 7 years ago

All. The. Time. Legal paperwork is "it's just standard required legal blahblahblah, just sign it" right up until there's a dispute, and then it might as well have been signed in blood.

A job I worked at required that I acknowledge having received and read a pamphlet on sexual harassment in the workplace. My understanding is that it is a requirement of the state of CA that employers distribute such a pamphlet. The state even has a stock pamphlet that fulfills the requirement, though employers are free to substitute their own. My employer wanted me to acknowledge that I'd received the one via the HR website … except the link caused 500 Internal Server Errors.

I reported this, and even noted that if the link just goes to the standard pamphlet [and I linked to that] that we could consider the defect in the website "cured" and I could sign and life could move on. That part of the message got ignored, of course; the people responsible for the HR site are like "well it works for us?", and of course there's still pressure to sign a statement that I've read this thing.

All of that after I explicitly asked for any and all paperwork that would require my signature up front before becoming an employee. (This was, of course, not included in what I was given prior to starting.)

im3w1l2• 7 years ago

All of that after I explicitly asked for any and all paperwork that would require my signature up front before becoming an employee. (This was, of course, not included in what I was given prior to starting.)

I'd be interested in what would happen if you pushed hard on this point. Giving people surprise contracts after they have quit their previous job, moved their family and acquired a new house should not be acceptable.

behringer9• 7 years ago

Those people get the documents. I've never been in a job that required me to sign something that I couldn't see. When it doesn't work, you say no. People are too afraid to say no.

ptero2• 7 years ago

Unfortunately, pushing hard (as in, "I will not sign this since it was not given to me pre-employment") might actually get you booted. Companies routinely update policies and a refusal to comply with those, even created post-hiring, may be sufficient for termination.

If what you mean is "this policy sounds reasonable, but I cannot sign anything sight unseen" any reasonable HR will just print (scan / email) you a copy of anything they want you to sign. My 2c.

rolltiide2• 7 years ago

I'd be interested in what would happen if you pushed hard on this point.

No employment, problem solved.

mikeash5• 7 years ago

“It’s just standard whatever” is really fun when you want a change and you have all the leverage. It’s hilarious to watch the tune change when you say you just won’t sign in that case. Alas, I’ve only been in this position once.

ryandrake• 7 years ago

In employee-employer relationships, the employer typically has all the power, so if you refuse to sign, you will likely be terminated. This comes up all the time with signing NDAs, copyright assignment policies, anti-moonlighting policies... you have to sign it or you’re gone. I’ve tried the cute “strike out the clauses you don’t like” trick and in every case, Legal got back to me in a few days with a stern “Sign it unmodified or GTFO.”

I also remember a company that I worked for where every week, you had to sign a paper showing you worked 8 hours each day for a total of 40 hours, regardless of whether you actually worked more or less. This was for a salaried position with no overtime so it didn’t really affect my compensation. I tried correcting the numbers and HR said you can’t change them. I pointed out that I’d be lying if I signed it unmodified and the response was I’d be terminated if I didn’t sign. So, of course I signed it but it seemed like such a pointless exercise.

pjc502• 7 years ago

I've once been in that situation where the company tried to introduce a contract rewrite with the standard lack of clarity over whether it applied to everything, including outside work (e.g. open source contributions). There were enough open source developers in the company that this was a big problem.

So we all just refused to sign the contract change.

The situation stalled for a few months, and they eventually backed down and wrote in a clarification. This was the UK, so we actually had rights and couldn't just be arbitrarily sacked, and everyone was aware that pursuing individuals over this would lead to a mass exodus and the destruction of the company.

redorb2• 7 years ago

Had to quit the company I worked at for 4-5 years after the owner died his wife took over - and tried to force non competes that were forever and transferable if the business was sold etc..

The contract was so broad there was no way it was valid. The kicker was she was withholding my standard'ish larg'ish bonus. I just walked and finally she came around - took years for us to mend our relationship.

geofft4• 7 years ago

Isn't the signature for the employer's CYA, not for your own? That is, if you lodged a complaint saying that you never received the pamphlet and were told to sign anyway (and especially if there's a paper trail of you saying you couldn't access the page and them telling you to sign anyway), can't they get in trouble for not following the law?

Bartweiss5• 7 years ago

Yes-ish? That is, I'd be very surprised if anyone ever said "I know the page is down, but sign like it isn't anyway", at least in writing.

The general pattern for this sort of thing is that a different person from the one who got the complaint comes by and reminds you you haven't signed the form, and HR is breathing down their neck now. And if you explain about the error, they might reasonably say "well, if it's the same form as the one you did read, then who cares?" After all, it's not their form, they're not asking you to lie - just pointing out the same sensible thing you did in the first place. In the most extreme case, a bunch of people would ask this, none of them would ever push back up the chain, and if you refused strenuously enough you might get fired for "failing to sign the sexual harassment form" (or more likely, for no stated reason). Nobody's going to ask for a lie, they just ignore the problem and keep repeating the initial request. That doesn't necessarily make it legal, given that the complaint was raised, but it makes proving the misbehavior enormously difficult.

I don't remember who said this first, but the miracle of bureaucracy is that it can create causeless effects. A bunch of people make a bunch of reasonable, innocent-looking decisions, and somehow they all add up to "lie or get fired" without anyone ever having to say it.

burtonator• 7 years ago

I wonder if it's possible to keep an opposing paper trail somehow.

deathanatos4• 7 years ago

This is another Pandora's box. I can't tell you how many times I've received emails regarding my relationship with the company as an employee that are also then labelled as being "confidential", and thus not to leave the company's systems. (I.e., I'm not technically allowed to make a paper trail.)

I've also received countless "confidential, do not forward. We just posted on our public blog <TL;DR of blog post>"

chc• 7 years ago

I don't know if I'm just lucky, but I've always had good results just not presenting my compliance with the law as something I have a choice in. "Oh, gosh, I really want to sign this, but I need X to fulfill the legal requirements. Please help me resolve this so I can do the thing we both want."

tomcam• 7 years ago

Would love to hear a concrete example of this. I love the idea but still quite can’t envision the execution.

LannisterDebt• 7 years ago

Not a job, but I signed up for a gym membership recently and the sales employee asked me to digitally sign the contract (displayed on screen) using an electronic signature pad.

Naturally I asked him to print out a copy so I could read it before signing. While I was reading the document, to make some small-talk I asked him how many people in the years he'd been there have actually read the contract they signed. His answer? 0. I was the first.

13of40• 7 years ago

I backed my rental car into a tree and scratched the bumper on the vacation end of a business trip to Israel a couple of years ago. When I was at the rental agency working out how much I owed them, the lady handed me a paper to sign, completely in Hebrew, then got visibly annoyed when I insisted on looking at it through Google translate first.

dTal• 7 years ago

All of that after I explicitly asked for any and all paperwork that would require my signature up front before becoming an employee.

This reminds me of the Feynman story where he agrees to do a talk - but only if he doesn't have to sign his name more than 13 times.

They almost make it.

https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/71262/43/Feynman_-_Su...

inflatableDodo2• 7 years ago

Terry Pratchett nailed the expectations of commerce pretty well. Lies are ingrained in our business dealings and openly enforced by management.

"Zoon tribes are very proud of their Liars. Other races get very annoyed about all this. They feel like the Zoon ought to have adopted more suitable titles, like ‘diplomat’ or ‘public relations officer.’ They feel they are poking fun of the whole thing."

adolph• 7 years ago

From Pratchett’s novel Equal Rites

https://www.amazon.com/Equal-Rites-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett...

onion2k• 7 years ago

All the more amusing when you realise that Pratchett's job prior to becoming an author was as a public relations officer.

hollander2• 7 years ago

In Star Trek you have the Ferengi, a species known for lying. I like them because you know what you can expect. Of course I've never had to deal with Ferengi, so for me it's easy to say this... ;-)

inflatableDodo2• 7 years ago

Of course I've never had to deal with Ferengi, so for me it's easy to say this... ;-)

You may be dealing with them more than you know. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farang

komali27• 7 years ago

Last defcon someone did a really interesting presentation on how to investigate the government or government officials. Talked about how to get a FOIA request responded to, where to look for information.

What really stuck with me though was a slide they offered towards the beginning. I don't have it memorized, but it was demonstrating a sort of "pyramid of public outrage" for certain actions. Sex with children was at the top as most likely to generate outrage, hypocrisy was at the bottom, and somewhere near the bottom was misappropriation of government funds.

samfriedman• 7 years ago

Do you know if this talk is on YouTube?

Mathnerd314• 7 years ago

I found the talk: https://www.wallofsheep.com/blogs/news/list-of-packet-hackin... https://twitter.com/ebrinkster/status/1028085975887429639

It doesn't look like it's on YouTube unfortunately.

treerock• 7 years ago

hypocrisy was at the bottom

That surprises me given the furore around the likes of Michael Gove admitting to taking drugs[1].

Seems like a politician can lie, steal and manipulate without much complaint, but hypocrisy is a major sin.

(Although it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between genuine public outrage and the newspapers whipping it up.)

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/08/michael-gov...

dsfyu404ed4• 7 years ago

Hypocrisy is only a sin when the other side does it.

Like when democrats push gun control and complain about systemic racism in the same breath or when republicans blindly advocate for whatever law enforcement wants while saying they care about individual liberty. Those things only ever get called out by the other side.

pbhjpbhj• 7 years ago

Seems like a politician can lie, steal and manipulate without much complaint //

I don't think that's true, there's just not much we can do about it.

Some Tory MPs are supremely awful people willing to cause harm to millions to line their own pockets -- and people vote for them because they will get richer themselves (so long as they don't fall ill, or get made unemployed, or become poor).

I don't think it's necessarily the hypocrisy here that has people up in arms. It seems that it's the unequal treatment (a close cousin to hypocrisy, for sure): has Gove been questioned by police, had his house searched, his computers and phone seized, etc.. I'm guessing "no he's rich, so he can get away with drugs crime that others get locked up for".

Many people probably thing his crime is de minimis and should really be decriminalised. But here's the rub, he is in position to initiate that; but he doesn't want to, because "letting proles use drugs is different to me using it" or some excuse.

In short, for me it's not plain hypocrisy but evidence of deep seated belief of their own superiority.

Per your last paragraph: you can't even tell if it's true, they just do it to try and look interesting when their public persona is very bland.

jedimastert• 7 years ago

I just want to point out that there is a very active subreddit called Trump criticizes Trump[0] where people take historical tweets from Trump and show them as hypocritical compared to a more current tweet/events. The top post, for example, shows a tweet of Trump criticizing Obama for "attacking the internet" and saying that net neutrality is "the fairness doctrine" on the day that net neutrality was repealed, or another where he said he'd stand by LGBTQ+ and then ban trans folk from serving in the military. There's hundreds of posts and (other than people getting frustrated over the internet) nothing seems to be done about it.

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/TrumpCriticizesTrump/

isoskeles2• 7 years ago

hypocrisy was at the bottom

Where it belongs. Reminds me of Norm MacDonald’s recent joking about Bill Cosby being a hypocrite.

kelnos• 7 years ago

I'm curious why you think hypocrisy belongs at the bottom. Is it not reasonable to expect our elected officials to "walk the walk", and get pissed at them when they don't?

awakeasleep• 7 years ago

Breaucracy hacking. I guess I'm a subversive type, because my first instinct was to 'sign' the forms with the word 'unverifiable' in long hand

ballenf• 7 years ago

That would still likely count as your signature. Same reason an ‘X’ works.

mikeash5• 7 years ago

I don’t know about that. One requirement of a contract is a “meeting of the minds,” i.e. both sides are in agreement. An X indicates that, but “unverifiable” would seem not to.

i_am_proteus• 7 years ago

My preference is to annotate exceptions to what I am signing in legible block print, and then initial and date at the end of each annotation.

When I sign, I include my full name and the date in block print as well as "with exceptions."

Bureaucrat/legal types usually understand that asking me to sign a fresh copy without those annotations is explicitly asking me to lie.

sbhn• 7 years ago

Liar and Lawyer, sound the pretty much the same to me.

avs7332• 7 years ago

This type of thing goes beyond normalization of deviance to acculturation of deviance.

This article, rightly, focuses on the direct impact of individual acts of false certification. But this type of normalizing and even requiring it likely has broader impacts in how employees enegage with information and communication around their job in ways that affect authenticity and intention in hard to observe ways.

This is a scary thing to me...very scary.

tvanantwerp• 7 years ago

This Dear Bureaucrat letter seems interesting as well. In response to the query, "How do I deal with this inadequate computer system?", the response is to use Shadow IT. I have strong feelings against Shadow IT, but I have equally strong feelings about government IT systems being garbage. I'm torn.

https://www.federaltimes.com/opinions/2019/04/18/dear-bureau...

pfortuny3• 7 years ago

Goodness, that reply is awesome in the detail and savoir faire! Thanks for sharing.

empath754• 7 years ago

It makes the mistake of assuming, as the letter writer does, that the purpose of the foia system is to reply to requests in an accurate and timely manner, rather than to bury them in red tape.

David_Reed2• 7 years ago

[Running sarcasm detector.] Thanks!

David_Reed2• 7 years ago

Thanks. I'll post that column to Hacker News tomorrow.

stronglikedan2• 7 years ago

I'm pretty sure tvanantwerp just did. ;-)

derefr2• 7 years ago

These things happen because the executives originally charged with implementation of some external compliance requirement know that they have the power to implement changes, but don’t have the ground-level information required to feed those changes. So these requirements get delegated down the org-chart, to people with ground-level information but without power; under the presumption that a response will flow back up the org-chart from said people, telling the higher-up what is needed-but-unavailable on the ground to actually implement the requirement.

In other words, the higher-up is trying to receive an error condition by installing an exception handler in their part of the system, and then expecting the ground-level routine to realize there’s a problem and throw an exception, and for that exception to make its way back to them.

But, unlike in software, where you usually feed everything as source through a single compiler at some point, and so you can force every component of the system to support exception-handling the same way; in organizational “systems”, the parts in the middle usually have no idea what to do with “exceptional” reports that cross their desks. They haven’t been informed that it’s part of their job to keep raising these reports up a level until someone sees them who can handle them. And because they haven’t been told that, they try to “handle” the exception themselves, in order to present a clean interface to their own boss—usually by just tossing the exception-report out, and chewing out their subordinate for giving it to them.

If you’re a CEO, and you think you might ever need to use “exception handling” as a way to collect ground-level information, you’ve gotta ensure every layer of your management understands this in advance—understands that they won’t be blamed for a “fault” happening below them, and in fact that this fault was expected, even encouraged by people above them; and that those higher-ups need to know when ground-level faults happen.

Sadly, even for organizations that that implement this policy perfectly... it only ends up “counting” for the types of exception-reports they were looking for at the time that they set up the policy. So, for example, retail companies know to reraise security reports; companies that employ tradespeople know to reraise health-and-safety reports; etc. But these same companies, when it comes to other types of exception-reports, are no better than anyone else. They learned a specific lesson, but not the general one.

tenebrisalietum• 7 years ago

the parts in the middle usually have no idea what to do with “exceptional” reports that cross their desks

Or they explicitly don't want to report them because it makes it look like they don't know what they are doing, or they are afraid that it would create more work for them and they are already overworked.

derefr2• 7 years ago

Right, that’s what I meant by “a clean interface to their boss”—because they’re unaware that rethrowing these exceptions is a (perhaps implicit) part of their job description, and they certainly don’t think it’s part of their boss’s job description, they think that 1. they’ll be doing something they’re not supposed to be doing by rethrowing the exception, and 2. it’ll be their own boss’s job to handle the exception, probably by throwing out the report and then trusting them less to get stuff done on their own.

LoSboccacc• 7 years ago

more realistically: first manager installed the system as a virtuous feedback gathering mechanism, then three turnover later as the first crunch hit faults become a metric to optimize and everyone gets incentived on reducing them, at which point gaming the system ensues

im3w1l2• 7 years ago

A friend had these problems frequently and said that if it was a legal/contractual requirement, he would adhere to it to the letter. But if it was some out-of-touch boss's boss's boss that made an unrealistic demand, his inclination was to go with "how it was done".

drdeadringer• 7 years ago

Reading the article and the comments prompted me to wonder what would happen if//when I say something to the order of "may I read it first?". As I age, I feel myself becoming more cautious than I was [perhaps as cautious as I should have been in the first place a la "everyone agrees to the EULA"].

gumby2• 7 years ago

Interesting they say "suck it up, lie, or resist". The other way is to push the requirement further down: I don't understand this thing you're buying but you have represented to me that it is necessary.

That's the actual responsible way to do it.

Bartweiss5• 7 years ago

It doesn't look like a total fix in this case, since the questioner still has to certify that they've only approved essential things. The initial form is too badly botched for "I've verified that this was claimed as essential" to suffice.

But in general, this is a good point. People are always going to have to accept decisions with incomplete information. The fix for that isn't owning outcomes they don't understand, it's clarifying what they're really doing; in this case, George isn't verifying the necessity but rather that experts have declared the thing necessary.

cakeface• 7 years ago

I like this thought. What would it take to certify the form? 10 hours a month? 20? Can you redirect other people on your team to work on this?

When it is broken down to a cost (time) calculation then it might actually become reasonable to invest in a better system for accounting and analyzing expenditures.

michaelt2• 7 years ago

Today I expensed a $10 BNC connector.

How long do you suppose it would take to confirm that it was a part we need, that we don't already have, and that I got a good price on it? And how many such claims do you think each person in the finance department sees each day?

jasonhansel2• 7 years ago

Yeah. It doesn't sound like it'd take too much work for this manager to get a general sense from his employees of how "essential" a purchase is.

Bartweiss5• 7 years ago

they found commanders were required to certify their troops completed 297 days of mandatory training, when only 256 days were available for training.

I think we often underestimate just how bad this sort of thing is. It's not just a question of personal integrity, or of whether the real value is a viable one.

First, these practices create miscommunication. If some clever analyst realizes training can be done in 256 days rather than 297, they might write a report recommending 30 days be shaved off training time. And unless someone who knows about the discrepancy gets involved, it's possible that "cut 30 days" will get implemented formally against the lower real timeframe. (This sort of thing happens all the time with budgets, where extra money that's been informally redirected to a different expense is formally cut as bloat.)

Second, they weaken the integrity of the system. No matter how upstanding the individuals, certifying nonsense disrupts a Schelling point of "printed and signed claims are accurate", and so it becomes harder to react to actual problems like the people cheating on nuclear missile readiness training. It's the print equivalent of unimportant elements in a safety routine; changing the routine is fine, but getting sloppy endangers the parts that do matter.

pfortuny3• 7 years ago

Although in a very different context, the certification of nonsense is to a great extent what made the economy in the USSR a total mess. Lots of money is lost because of this.

pjscott• 7 years ago

Here's a podcast where one of the authors of that study goes into more detail, especially on your second point:

http://www.econtalk.org/leonard-wong-on-honesty-and-ethics-i...

papln12• 7 years ago

The OP links to Wong's paper, but the URL is bad:

correct URL: https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/PUB1250.pdf

bad URL in OP: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB12...

sonnyblarney3• 7 years ago

It's entirely possible that the training was de-facto complete, i.e. they covered all of the material issues in a shorter timeframe, and the remaining bits might just be bureaucratic padding anyhow.

i.e. the nature of these problems may stem from other forms of inefficiencies.

In the work camps on the Alberta Oil Fields, there are literally signs up in front of the all of the pissoires instructing men on 'what angle to hold your penis at' so as to avoid splatter. I'm. Not. Kidding.

Can you imagine the site Engineer signing off on the bathrooms, possibly knowing the 'how to hold your penis' safety posters have not been issued yet?

dbt00• 7 years ago

I've worked in places where those were put up on a volunteer basis by people who got tired of stepping in puddles...

oneplane• 7 years ago

I wonder how common this is in a worldwide or perhaps developed country-wide comparison.

I know this happens/exists, but I have not seen it in my country. There are people who simply will not read what they are signing, but having to sign something that is factually wrong or impossible or without having the option to read it hasn't appeared to me yet. While anecdotal, I would have expected to see this as well if it is as widespread as I'd expect it to be. (I sign about ~10 things every week which might be on the low side or high side depending on job/location/context)

howard941• 7 years ago

It's frightening that this arises in the procurement context. I fear for the good USG people in these situations. The Boeing tanker fraud wasn't all that long ago, the folks fallen from the highest levels to federal prison. https://nlpc.org/2019/03/19/boeing-tanker-scandals-never-go-...

emeraldd• 7 years ago

There is another alternative as well, require that anyone submitting a purchasing request sign a document with substantially similar if not identical wording and provide their case for why a purchase is needed. That way you build up your own paper trail if someone submitting requests is doing so nefariously.

thinkcontext2• 7 years ago

The CYA thing to do here is to create a paper trail of you asking your boss and HR what procedure you need to follow to determine if something is essential. They likely won't respond at all or in writing, send a follow-up in writing noting their lack of response.

WhompingWindows• 7 years ago

Do you really send two or more emails for every piece of red tape that you go through? The overhead here is ridiculous, all for CYA from lawsuits that won't affect 99% of workers.

thinkcontext2• 7 years ago

You only need to do this once. It establishes the procedure or lack thereof.

parliament32• 7 years ago

This is the true bureaucratic answer. Also insert a CYA about why you're signing the form now, so you can keep signing it after their non-response without exposing yourself to too much risk. Something like, "I've attempted to verify the list of items, and to my knowledge they appear essential, but can you clarify the procedure for determining whether an expenditure is essential or not?"

novok2• 7 years ago

Do you save the emails so it doesn't get deleted by the 3 month retention policy later on?

brodouevencode• 7 years ago

These fall into the white lies bucket. Largely inconsequential, rarely checked on, and when things do go south deniable to a degree large enough for the person to not lose their job.

hurrdurr2• 7 years ago

I have to deal with OSHA and other local regulatory agencies on a regular basis. Having to deal with a bunch of unimaginative (or simply stupid) people who force you to conform to poorly written regulatory requirements is just soul sucking.

jancsika• 7 years ago

They should force you to conform to the requirements regardless of their opinion of how poorly or well the regulation is written. If those aren't two separate issues then the whole system breaks down.

xwdv• 7 years ago

Has anyone every decided to just get terminated as a result of not signing something? How does that go when applying for your next job and you say you were terminated because you refused to sign something that wasn't true or was not in your favor?

codingdave• 7 years ago

I only tried refusing to sign something once. Nobody ever called me on it. I got nastygrams via email. I ignored them. One day, they stopped coming.

I cannot guarantee that will work in all situations, of course. You basically are calling their bluff, and it could backfire. But if they really are bluffing, all is well.

avs7332• 7 years ago

I think the problem here is that of 'who's bluff are you calling'.

Usually the people bothering me about these types of things aren't the one's doing the bluffing about it...they are in their own loop of compliance and nastygrams. They are trained to be compliant and don't have a mental framing that this stuff could be a bluff. That makes me a lot less confident of how they will react or their willingness to be rational.

andrewla3• 7 years ago

I was recently at a medical office (this is in the US), and they had replaced their system, so I had to re-sign the variety of forms that they make you sign, HIPAA disclosure, etc.

They gave me an electronic signature pad and asked me to sign. I pointed out that I did not have a document in front of me, and they said that they would give me a copy of the signed form after I signed it. I once again attempted to point out that I was being asked to sign a form that I couldn't read, and they said, "oh, it's just a privacy disclosure".

A superviser (who was overseeing the migration to the new system) came by and asked what the issue was, and I said I was being asked to sign a form without seeing what I was signing. They very patiently explained to me that it was a HIPAA disclosure, and I said that if I could sign their description, I would be happy to, but I'm not going to sign a more formal document having only been given a summary of it. They further explained that if I wanted, they could print out a copy of the form after I signed it for my records.

Nobody at the office seemed to understand here what my objection was. I overheard other patients saying things like "I'm not signing something I haven't seen", so I know that I wasn't crazy. Eventually I convinced the person I was working with to turn their monitor around so that I could read the documents before signing them.

The thing is that everyone knows that these forms are completely meaningless anyway. I probably would have been better off just signing the forms so that if they ever came up in a court case I could just honestly say that I had never seen the form before.

300bps• 7 years ago

Nobody at the office seemed to understand here what my objection was.

Of course not. Because the rest of us were writing, "HERP DERP" in the signature line and moving on with our lives.

why_only_15• 7 years ago

The OP said

I overheard other patients saying things like "I'm not signing something I haven't seen"

So it sounds like this was a common complaint

benburleson2• 7 years ago

Actually, that made me think of a good idea. If the provider employees aren't aware of what's actually happening in this situation or just don't care, just write, "I didn't read this form" on the signature line and hand it back.

Have a good laugh when that document is presented to a judge.

asdff• 7 years ago

For these kind of forms my signature is just a line; screw it. I've seen electronic forms where you literally type out your name in print, and sometimes they get cheeky and put it into a signature looking font. What's the point? I'd love to see whichever engineer cobbled that half baked system together watch it get blown up in court.

jahewson• 7 years ago

I once visited a doctors office that wanted me to sign a HIPAA release form to release my health records to... myself!

TazeTSchnitzel5• 7 years ago

They want a signature on paper in case you're not you.

criddell• 7 years ago

That's probably a good thing.

If you find out that your records were released three times in the past year and when you ask to whom they were released to, it's better to have a piece of paper with a signature on it than for them to say "it must have been you, because we don't have any paperwork".

penagwin3• 7 years ago

When I was a kid my mom took me to a doctor, they had her sign a HIPAA release for herself which I thought was kinda funny.

It makes sense why (default to release to nobody but the patient), but I just thought it was funny that although she has the authority to add herself or anyone else that she wasn't on the list by default.

Broken_Hippo2• 7 years ago

With HIPAA, it is always better to be safe. In the case of requesting medical records, they generally want proof that they released it to you and not your fictional younger brother who looks almost like you but will give your information to a boss.

I honestly would rather have this.

behringer9• 7 years ago

If you sign something without reading it the judge will take that to mean you're an idiot. Not a great way to look in front of a judge.

benburleson2• 7 years ago

Now I'm curious if these forms go the way of EULAs in the past, where it became obvious nobody is reading them and they agreement is compulsory to proceed to use the software, so it became understood that the agreement is effectively void because of the way it is presented and used.

I think if it can be shown that the provider is making it difficult for the consumer to actually read the form before signing, a judge will actually be more upset with the provider.

What is a patient supposed to do in this case? Leave the office? What if this appointment was scheduled several months in advance, which is not an uncommon wait time? To put this in the way of a patient's health should not be acceptable.

empath754• 7 years ago

Nonsense. People do it all the time. No judge is going to think you’re an idiot for signing some meaningless waiver that millions of other people do.

TazeTSchnitzel5• 7 years ago

It's not a valid contract if you haven't had the opportunity to read it. A waiver without legal power though? Well, it never meant anything to begin with.

arkades5• 7 years ago

Bonus points that most medical offices have only a vague idea what HIPAA actually includes. 80% of the time an office says "we can't do the thing you're asking us to do, it's a HIPAA violation," it's not a HIPAA violation.

alexbanks4• 7 years ago

My shoulder surgeon gave my name, phone number and a vivid description of the circumstances that arose to warrant my shoulder surgery to a woman she thought I'd be a good match with. She even told the woman to "not tell anyone because this is a huge violation."

It goes both ways.

hathawsh• 7 years ago

This reminds me of a friend of mine. Jenny Ahlstrom learned it can be valuable for patients to voluntarily share their own medical data:

https://newsroom.siliconslopes.com/jenny-ahlstrom-mother-can...

Key quote:

“Everyone — from hospitals, tech companies, and pharma — wants patient data,” Jenny said. “But each have their own data silos, HIPAA restrictions, regulatory concerns, and liability issues. Through trial and error, we discovered the key to the puzzle: patients have the freedom to aggregate their own data and freely share it to drive new research.”

I look forward to seeing more initiatives like hers.

inapis• 7 years ago

Ha. And here (India) I was asked to sign 7 pieces of paper by DHL/Bluedart to send a piece of package across the country and also asked to submit an identity proof. Even the government doesn't make me sign this much when issuing a passport and the Indian government is infamous for its bureaucracy.

Rules and the regulators enforcing them sometimes do not make any sense at all.

froindt• 7 years ago

I had the same thing happen to me on an ER trip. "Here's a little Crystal (brand) signature pad. Now I'll name off the document titles and have you sign your name."

No! It already feels illegitimate when I sign a PDF with a touchscreen computer over a paper signature. There's no way for me to know precisely what I'm signing unless I have paper in front of me. Even then, without acknowledgement on every sheet and/or me receiving a copy at the end, it's entirely possible for them to swap Page 3 out and for me to suddenly have agreed to something else entirely!

I ended up getting paper copies of the documents and signed those.

schreiaj3• 7 years ago

I've never experienced one that wouldn't let me read it before I signed it.

I thought it was particularly interesting that I was referred to another doctor inside the same medical system sharing an EHR (ie they already HAD my data)and I still had to sign aa new HIPAA form less than a week later. That was the single time I didn't insist on reading the whole thing, I asked them if they were the exact forms used across the entire hospital system, I double checked one of them, and then just signed the rest.

My real fun experience with this was when I bought a house, one thing said I had to move in within 30 days, another 60 days, and another 15 days. There were also various other date discrepancies on when certain things had been completed and, they had used my full name (first, middle, last) in some places and just first/last in others. Man everyone was mad I was reading everything before I signed it though.

Declanomous• 7 years ago

I read everything put in front of me when I bought my car. Boy was the finance guy pissed, cause it took me like an hour, and he makes his living upselling add-ons and stuff.

I'm also a pretty fast reader, so it is pretty obvious that they absolutely expect you to not read whatever it is you are signing, because I assume that it would take most other people well over an hour to read.

mehrdadn3• 7 years ago

I bought a house, one thing said I had to move in within 30 days, another 60 days, and another 15 days.

Confused... if you're buying the house why can't you just move in when/if you feel like it? Is this a mortgage/legal thing about it being your primary residence?

papln12• 7 years ago

one thing said I had to move in within 30 days, another 60 days, and another 15 days.

I doubt that it said you had to move in, unless it was a condo with bizarrely strict vacancy rules. do you mean that it said you have the right to move in in those time-frames?

andrewla3• 7 years ago

When I bought a house, my bank, Chase (naming names!) made me sign a form saying that they had permission to repossess my house.

Not conditional on non-payment or anything. Not conditional on violation of the terms of the mortgage. Just a blanket document that said they could take it whenever they liked. Apparently the idea is that if I die and my survivors continue to live in the house, then they might have trouble foreclosing on the house because my survivors did not sign the loan agreement. Otherwise, they promised, this document would stay in a drawer somewhere and never be used.

I said that of course I would not sign this document, and they said that the bank would not issue the loan without it. At this point, at closing, what can I even do? Closing was a formality -- my lease had already run out on my previous place, movers had been arranged, HOA had signed off on the purchase and the mortgage terms, and the approval of the loan itself took a stupidly long time to get all the documentation necessary so I couldn't just go to another bank and start the whole process again (especially since they would probably make me sign the same damn form).

So I signed it, and may God have mercy on my soul.

__david__• 7 years ago

I'll one up this. I recently went to Kaiser for a procedure and they handed me the signature thing and said, "you need your signature to indicate that you've checked-in". So I signed it. As the final part of check-in they handed me a stack of papers and said, "here's what you signed!"

I was stunned because they never gave any indication that the signature was for some sort of contract/legal form! Perhaps I should have suspected, but it still seemed really underhanded… If they had, I would have insisted on reading it first. Luckily, reading it afterward it was something I would have signed anyway, but come on!

pushpop2• 7 years ago

I can’t speak for the US legal system but in the UK that would instantly void the contract. You have to be aware of what you’re signing.

maxxxxx2• 7 years ago

They use the same procedure for billing. First do the procedure and then find out how much it costs. No information upfront.

Gibbon12• 7 years ago

Yeah if any other industry besides health care pulled that people would go to prison.

Seems to be a thing that doctors like to point out how much more important they are than auto mechanics. I think the auto mechanic that fixed my transmission almost killed me. Because on SR 108 the transmission wouldn't go into low.

thrpythrwaway332• 7 years ago

Similar horror story. When I went to get therapy for depression, they gave me a contract to read and sign for therapy agreement. I got to page 11 which said that I will not consume alcoholic beverages while under treatment at all.

It seemed to be a rather overbroad ask for what I was coming for, so I objected (over their secure PM system). They tried to object that "well, you need to follow your doctor's directions because there can be interactions between the medicine and alcohol."

I said "The clause doesn't say 'I will follow the psychiatrist's direction about drug interactions.' It says I will unconditionally refrain from all alcohol."

Then the main doctor entered the thread and really blew my mind. He said, basically, a) no one in 5 years has objected to that clause, and b) it's common to have a clinic policy like and it's like an EULA.

b) was weird because EULA's are known for being notoriously abusive. a) was weird because he seems to genuinely think it's no big deal that either 1) no one is reading that clause, or 2) all of his patients are apparently teetotalers.

(I also felt it was particularly disturbing that he was exploiting the bandwagon effect to intimidate me into signing.)

So I said, if you're comfortable with the clause meaning the interpretation earlier in chat, that it just means to follow directions about alcohol interactions with meds, then I'll sign, and he agreed.

papln12• 7 years ago

So I said, if you're comfortable with the clause meaning the interpretation earlier in chat, that it just means to follow directions about alcohol interactions with meds, then I'll sign, and he agreed.

Did you document that modification in in writing or recording?

PovilasID• 7 years ago

I was in medical trial that had the same... I just did not drink a day before they took my blood. Also I am pretty sure toxicology test was not performed. It also required me to not have kids. It made sense but still sounds extreame.

URSpider945• 7 years ago

This is actually a violation of HIPAA law. My wife regularly schools hospital and doctors office employees all the time on their consent practices (she has a degree in public health). She will even call the hospital’s IRB to file formal complaints. Things we’ve heard:

“We will have you sign the consent form after the procedure when it’s more convenient for you”

“The first page doesn’t apply to you (when it clearly does)”

“Sign here to acknowledge receipt of our privacy policy (which we haven’t given you)”

differentView• 7 years ago

So what's the punishment for what the parent comment described?

icebraining2• 7 years ago

“We will have you sign the consent form after the procedure when it’s more convenient for you”

Isn't the consent form for their CYA? I wonder what happens if someone refuses to sign it later.

cactca• 7 years ago

The IRB would not be the correct office for a HIPAA violation, unless it was an informed consent form for a research study.

Most hospitals have a compliance office where this type of issue would be handled.

freeopinion2• 7 years ago

"Things we've heard"?

Every single time I have ever been asked by a medical office to sign that I have been given a copy of their privacy policy, I have never been given that policy. Every single time I have pointed this out. Every time except one I have been made to understand that I am being unreasonably difficult.

From my experiences, I wouldn't say this is a rumor and something to be heard of. It is the standard practice everywhere I have ever sought medical attention.

chaz6• 7 years ago

This makes me think that one should have to sign every page, because what's to stop pages being substituted after the fact? If you only sign the last page, there's no way to prove that the rest of the document is what you agreed to.

papln12• 7 years ago

AIUI, legally, a signature isn't itself inherently binding to anything, neither necessary nor sufficient. You don't even need a signature to form a binding contract.

The signature is merely evidence that you were physically present and signed the document, since a signature is generally (if farcically) considered to be something only you can create. The contract that the signature is attached to is another evidentiary question, which is why some multi-page documents ask for a signature or at least initials on every page.

Now, if the signature page you signed says, "I have read to and agree to Document X", that's evidence of... what it says, but there's still the very open question what are the contents of Document X, unless "X" is something like an SHA hash of a document, or a name and date/version of a document maintained by a well-trusted escrow agent.

TallGuyShort3• 7 years ago

I don't understand how signing on a pad that is detached from the form is enforceable. They captured an image of your signature and tell you what it is you're signing. They then take that image and attach it to the document. How is that any stronger proof than a claim of an oral contract?

neilv2• 7 years ago

That's surprising to me, because I usually see HIPAA taken very seriously. (I think the problems are more likely to be that personnel don't understand information technology and how fragile and untrustworthy our own "tech" field's work is today, not that they don't take HIPAA seriously.)

Related: On check-in for a doctor appointment, I was given a routine consent form to opt-in to some kind of sharing of info (for research purposes, or something like that). I instead checked the checkbox on the form that explicitly did not consent. The person at the front desk didn't seem to quite know what to do with the form when I didn't check the checkbox that was expected, but they accepted the form after a confused pause, and hopefully it was processed correctly.

RandomBacon2• 7 years ago

A lot of medical forms will ask more info than they need (such as Social Security Number).

I rarely go to a new doctor, but when I do, I usually leave about half the forms untouched, and the other half, half-filled out. Never had any any issues with the staff. Your mileage may vary.

dboreham2• 7 years ago

I've had the exact same thing happen at a US hospital. Probably the same software. I've also had a similar experience at my kids' school: By signing I agree to abide by their network acceptable use policy (no copy of said policy to be found).

ridaj• 7 years ago

Next time maybe just write "not signing sight unseen" on that electronic signature pad. Clerk likely won't care what you scratch down!

kerouanton• 7 years ago

You could also "sign" using a random figure, not your real signature, after all. No? Nothing prevents you to do so, legally speaking.

NikkiA• 7 years ago

You mean other than 'perjury' when they ask you in court if that was your signature?

No, it doesn't HAVE to match your usual signature, but that's not the actual point of a signature anyway.

hsksbr2• 7 years ago

Fun related story.

My best friend was given a PIP from his manager. Company wanted him out for political reasons, told him he had to sign, except all of the reasons in the PIP were fabricated.

He stapled a page to the back before turning it in saying that he disagrees, but is required to sign, and thus wishes to comply with the requirement to sign.

They fired him immediately for refusing to remove the extra page, tried to deny him unemployment benefits saying that he chose to quit by not signing. The case went to unemployment court and he won. He got all his benefits, company had to pay a huge fine.

freedrock87• 7 years ago

Whats a PIP?

Forge36• 7 years ago

Case details? I'd like to reference this

ben_jones• 7 years ago

I had to go to the hospital for an emergency ultrasound recently because my physician thought I might have appendicitis. I was pretty nervous, and the nurse took me into a private office and had me sign a bunch of paper work (and pay on the spot via debit card) for the procedure (~$900). I just wanted to get through it, so I signed everything in a hurry. Mid-procedure the technician asked me what I was there for, she then point blank told me that what she was doing (and what I had already paid for) was really ineffective on adults and that it was almost a guaranteed waste of time. Results came back inconclusive and life went back to normal.

How do a trust a doctor, nurse, or hospital administrator, when the whole systems seems to OPTIMIZE for situations like the one I just mentioned? I guess I'm supposed to call bullshit on everything they tell me, assume malice, and spend a large amount of money/time chasing down bills and second opinions. And this is with private insurance through my employer.

jdmichal• 7 years ago

The chances are that you could have simply told them you are not paying until it's billed through your insurance. My insurance card actually has that written on it. Hospitals especially always try to collect up front, but accept refusals when told to bill the insurance first.

ClassyJacket• 7 years ago

I had to let someone into my work to do generator maintenance the other day, and he handed me an iPad to sign that said literally nothing on the screen except 'signature'. He seemed surprised that I wasn't going to sign something I couldn't read.

dillonmckay• 7 years ago

So, I unfortunately learned this from a HR attorney, but signing ‘Refuse to sign’ is acceptable, and mostly goes unnoticed, especially if written in cursive.

smcl• 7 years ago

Is that "(I) Refuse to sign" (as in, you're writing it on your own behalf) or "Refused to sign" (as in, you're making it look like the form submitter filled it out themselves).

soulofmischief6• 7 years ago

My bank likes to disable my credit card for fraud each month when I make the same exact <10$ international transaction to the same exact company.

After months of this and a half an hour on the phone they told me I could just lift the auto-ban for the particular country so that I wouldn't have to spend half an hour on hold every single month for a recurring payment.

I said sure, and I was told to just send an email saying I approved of this just to confirm. The representative quickly tried to end the call after that, and I had to make her back up and explain exactly what I was confirming. She wouldn't just come out with it plainly, saying it was a simple lift of the ban for that country.

After enough prodding, she spilled that my confirmation meant that any transaction coming from that country would be considered pre-approved and not eligible for fraud prevention. I would be stuck with whatever charge came from anywhere an entire country, with no way to fight it.

She got angry with me for having a problem with this and caught an attitude, saying that it was unusual for people to either want to make international transactions at all or for them to care if they pre-approved an entire country for all payments. She couldn't understand what was wrong with this.

As far as I know... that's not even legal?

crooked-v• 7 years ago

Sounds like it's time to switch credit card providers.

iliketosleep• 7 years ago

They should be able to whitelist transactions to that particular company on your account, rather than whitelisting transactions for an entire country. From my personal experience, the credit card anti-fraud measures are quite advanced and offer a high level of granularity. It's one of the few aspects of banking I've been highly satisfied with. I suspect you're just dealing with very poor customer service.

taneq2• 7 years ago

it was unusual for people to either want to make international transactions at all or for them to care if they pre-approved an entire country for all payments

What do people use credit cards for if not buying things from other countries? O.o

mdekkers2• 7 years ago

Your bank lied to you, get another bank

dockd• 7 years ago

The last time I went to Rite Aid to pick up a prescription, their point of sale system asked me to acknowledge whether I spoke with/declined to speak with the pharmacist, before I got to speak with the pharmacist.

Broken_Hippo2• 7 years ago

To be fair, you probably could have simply waited to pay for the medicine until after you spoke to the pharmacist. If Rite Aid's system is like the pharmacy I worked at in the US, it was impossible to pay for a prescription until you sign.

The vast majority of folks picking up prescriptions do not talk to a pharmacist.

m463• 7 years ago

I assure you "Nobody at the office seemed to understand here what my objection was" is false.

They probably all understood quite well, but they stuck to the script (either unofficially to make their job smoother, or officially).

It's hard these days to know if you're talking to an innocent person or a corporate script.

A friend told me the inside story about a call answering service. This is a service that answers the late night infomercial numbers.

They are very quick to take your information to buy the thing, but then they try upselling you or cross-selling you other stuff.

EVERYTHING is scripted. "Oh, but other people didn't listen to these fabulous offers, and had to call back", etc.

So here's the thing. The people are required to follow the script, they cannot deviate. The ONLY exit to the script that would prevent them from being fired was "I will CANCEL my order unless you stop."

sametmax• 7 years ago

If they get stuborn and don't wanna provide the docs I was supposed to read, I manually edit the form to state that they will give it to me later, and sign+date the edit as well. Usually everybody is happy.

retube• 7 years ago

oh dear lord does this ring true. Yours, someone that works in banking

sanderjd• 7 years ago

I got lots of dirty looks at my house closing when I re-read all the documents I was signing. I had read copies of them the night before, but I wanted to make sure they were the same.

breischl2• 7 years ago

did that same thing once, and discovered that they had swapped the numbers for the interest rate and the term, so it was specified as a 4 year mortgage at 30% interest. Ouch!

The closing agent told me to just sign it and they'd fix it in an amendment later. Which I flatly refused to do - no f'ing way I'm signing on for $20k/month payments and hoping they fix it real soon now, especially when the fix is printing off one corrected page.

bachmeier2• 7 years ago

The closing agent told me to just sign it and they'd fix it in an amendment later.

Given the ethics of the mortgage industry, this might not have even been a mistake. They're terrible and they'd have held you to it.

glitchc2• 7 years ago

I’m sure this was probably not a big deal. No bank would issue such a mortgage. The numbers would have been corrected whether you caught it or not. After all, your mortgage is a separate agreement between you and the bank, and not part of the purchase and sale agreement.

happenedtome2• 7 years ago

A similar thing happened to me. The paperwork for our most recent home purchase listed both my wife and I as female, even though I'm male! I emailed the lender and CC:ed my wife saying, "Please correct this as I currently identify as male," which gave my wife a chuckle.

jupp0r• 7 years ago

Shouldn't this be something that should be delegated down the hierarchy? Presumably - for each purchase - somebody knows whether the purchase is needed. If the person in question has insufficient information to make that decision, all he should do is check that people down the hierarchy made that decision and can be held accountable for it.

Scown• 7 years ago

Complying with payment card industry (PCI DSS) requirements is an absolutely insane process, even if you're vaguely technically literate.

Obviously not saying payment processing isn't an incredibly important area to enforce good security practice. But it's a lonely place to be when you're attesting to hundreds of ridiculous requirements relating to your overpriced, off-the-shelf POS system and anything/anyone that touches it.

"Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely, yes." Cross fingers. Repeat annually.

empath754• 7 years ago

Also has lovely requirements like having antivirus installed on your Linux servers.

TazeTSchnitzel5• 7 years ago

Is that wrong? Malware does exist for Linux, and that way you can also detect malware designed for other systems if it ends up on the machine.

CWuestefeld2• 7 years ago

Maybe you're certifying at a lower level. I had to prove pretty much everything.

We have a "wallet" function, in support of which there's a DB that stores encrypted credit card numbers (they're encrypted by the app, so the DB never sees the cleartext). Obviously this database is backed up periodically. The auditor forced me to restore one of those backups and show them the content of the restored table, in order to prove that the backup/restore operation didn't magically decrypt the data.

This is something that I would have been willing to sign any document to certify, without having actually run the experiment. But they wanted screenshots.

They also told us that all employees need to have obfuscated email addresses to protect against spear phishing. That's when the infosec team finally told them they were being ridiculous.

throw20102010• 7 years ago

There are two distinct types of lying mentioned in the article, and each should be handled differently:

1. The non-issue "lie" that was the subject of the original question. Sometimes I get a little annoyed at people that take a form completely literally and then raise a stink about it. Every form like this has an implied "to the best of my knowledge" inserted in it. You cannot know for 100% certainty that every purchase was completely necessary. Did every piece of paper that was printed from that ream you ordered get used in a necessary function, or did maybe one or two sheets get used for someone to print their baseball tickets out at the office? Could some of those papers have been stored digitally instead of printed? Of course that ream of paper wasn't used for 100% necessary business purposes. But by signing the form you are saying, "it doesn't look like there are any employees in my branch that are stealing tons of office supplies, and that our waste seems reasonable." What you are saying is that "I'm not personally aware of any fraud going on with the supply order, and I've done some due diligence to check." What you are NOT saying is "I personally tracked every piece of paper and staple in the office to make sure nobody was cheating." That is not the expectation with these certifications, and any federal employee fired for that level of expectation can go to arbitration and would certainly win. Luckily federal employees have probably the strongest employment protections of anybody in the USA.

2. The second type of lie, mentioned in the anecdote about the Army officers, is a problem but easily fixed in a way that you don't sacrifice your integrity. This is the case in which adding the implied "to the best of my knowledge" doesn't fix the issue. To fix this, you must line out the "297 days" portion and write in (a different colored ink) the correct number of days that you trained. Then you sign in ink, and return a scanned copy to wherever it needs to go. You probably cannot change the form in Adobe Reader because most government forms are protected against changes, so you must alter the form with pen. If the people that you returned the form to raise a stink (usually they want a digital signature), you simply explain that you cannot comply because to do so would be perjury. If they still won't accept your corrected version of the form you can stall, but let your boss/commander know that you cannot sign the form as-is because to do so would be a violation of federal law- and you can't be fired for not breaking the law. Most of the time, it falls out on your side. If not, you would have your defense counsel salivating to take this one past arbitration to make some real money.

Pretty much every federal employee that cares about their integrity has already discovered the answers to these situations, and I suspect that this question is more of a straw man so that the author can talk about the pervasive culture of dishonesty that exists in the workplace. He's right in that a culture of dishonesty does exist, but he's missing the mark on where it's a problem. It's not in the resource management office that signs off on the paper/staples/toner orders or the Army officer that signs a training certification form that has the wrong number of days on it (as long as he feels his troops are mission ready). The culture of dishonesty is where a person awards a contract with a particular company so that they can get a cushy job in the private sector, or with people that accept a free trip to Disneyland to overlook an issue. Those are the dishonest incidents that matter, and they do not arise from some imagined "slippery slope" after certifying an office supply order.

naringas• 7 years ago

so this is why (sometimes) my hopes for the future depend on mediocrity and corruption, when the system is this stupid medocrity and corruption (which are terrible) can save the day!

does this mean that the system is even worse? (the answer depends on how well "it has treated" you).

neilv2• 7 years ago

This sounds somewhat familiar, though I approached what I saw a different way, with different outcome.

I'm getting out of independent technical consulting (just as soon as I find the right dotcom/startup employer), because the various business burdens, separate from the actual technical expertise I provide, kept increasing, and I could no longer cost-justify the burdens.

One kind of burden is regulatory compliances, and my favorite example is when a client needed me to be able to check a box in a compliance-tracking system Web form, attesting something like "I have an understanding of the FAR" document. I'm by-the-book about such things, so I put tech work on hold, dug in, and started reading. The FAR is actually not bad, pretty accessible, and I imagine a lot of serious straight-shooter accountant types put a lot of work into this, as part of making things run well, and I respect that immensely, and am glad they do that. But the current FAR PDF file is approx. 2,000 pages, and my expertise is in software. It took me a solid person-week to read through, so that I could possibly claim to have an understanding of it. Once I was done, at the time, I decided not to invoice those hours.

(On some later burdens, I had learned from this, and talked with the clients. Some burdens the client could help with, and some not.)

I agree with the need for such regulations and processes, but these and other burdens seemed to keep increasing, one of the architecture projects that would've made up for the overhead didn't seem to be coming through, and the burdens no longer made financial/personal sense for my particular one-person business. So, when a last straw burden was added (though reasonable, from a regulatory perspective), amidst some reorg on the parent contracts, I had to terminate a couple contracts for very positive projects that I'd been proud to be working on.

glitchc2• 7 years ago

That’s okay. Bureaucrats are also forced to lie as part of their job. They pretend not to understand (it’s their job to pretend) but they really do.

dmd• 7 years ago

When I signed up for life insurance, I was required to sign a form asserting that I have not "ever been instructed by a doctor to stop taking any prescription or non-prescription medication".

Uh, what? Apparently, what's meant is a doctor never told you to stop abuse of a drug. But that's not what it said, and I ended up having to go the 'subversive' route and submit the forms on paper, with this line crossed out, and an explanation attached.

dkarl• 7 years ago

I've rarely encountered situations where a superior wouldn't tell me on the record exactly what level of diligence is necessary, and the few exceptions turned out to be extremely toxic situations.

Which expenditures are "essential" can't always be objectively determined anyway. The purpose of the rule is not to ensure that inessential expenditures don't slip through the process but rather to ensure a chain of accountability that can be checked if some flagrant violation is discovered. In the letter-writer's position, it's probably only their job to be able to produce evidence of who assured them that an expenditure was essential, which means they need to put the right language on the form by which people request expenditures. As far as I understand it, procurement teams exist because a dedicated team of specialists can be more efficient and effective at procurement, not because spending decisions should be second-guessed by people who don't have the background to understand them.

supercanuck• 7 years ago

This isn’t limited to public service, the private sector is rife with this as well.

sonnyblarney3• 7 years ago

This is a good thing to talk about but let's not pretend that this is just a government thing.

jasonhansel2• 7 years ago

It's probably even more common in the private sector (especially in relatively informal business arrangements where contracts consist of boilerplate).

sonnyblarney3• 7 years ago

It can only happen where there is real entrenched power and companies do not have to be competitive.

Most 'private companies' are not at the scale where they have that.

I would imagine that 'Healthcare' is rife with this kind of thing, they are cash flush, and the outcomes are intangible but existential (like defence).

I can't imagine people playing solitaire at any kind of Health insurer etc. but I can certainly imagine them spending gazillions on boondoggles.

I have a family member who does 'BD' for Health Care, I'm certain from years of chats with her that she does nothing. Meets, plans, talks about possible future plans with other corps, they never work out. Looks into 'strategic initiatives' that are secondary and irrelevant. She's paid handsomely. And she's pretty smart, great communicator, certainly not a 'solitaire player' ... but about as efficient. And FYI I'm aware of how even 'good' BD works, and that it's mostly 'misses'.

Waterluvian2• 7 years ago

The advice to "cross out" the offending lines has been interesting to me as of late. I bought my first house recently and with that comes a thousand signatures for all kinds of things. I ran into a few interesting cases.

1. Nobody seems to notice or care.

I did this to a bunch of minutiae, misspellings, wrong addresses, etc. They do make it into the scanned copy and as far as I'm concerned, the record. But nobody seems to notice or care that it got changed.

2. "Let's talk about it but I still want your business."

I crossed out some things about data sharing that I disagreed with on some insurance forms. I got a call days later that someone noticed this. It sounded like they had a protocol for handling it. This felt like a, "there's an option to decline but we won't show it to you; you have to ask for it" kind of thing.

3. "You just ruined this 30 page document."

Okay so she didn't say that, but she did have to make an effort not to sound irritated that I crossed out some stuff. The resolution was a polite, "this is non-negotiable by the lender. If you don't agree, then we won't be confirming the mortgage today and you won't be closing today, leading to an expensive breach in the contract with the home seller." She then re-printed the sheet I "ruined" and I initialed it.

papln12• 7 years ago

leading to an expensive breach in the contract with the home seller."

Did you waive your financing contingency?

bagacrap2• 7 years ago

I think in the case of most documents you sign when buying a home, a) you don't have a choice (except don't buy a home) b) there are way too many documents to read (are you seriously going to pay the notary to sit there for 6 hours?) and c) it's all highly regulated and formulaic. Have you ever heard an anecdote to the contrary, ie someone who was bitten by a hidden clause when buying a home?

sneak3• 7 years ago

I think this is only the case when getting a mortgage, which involves a regulated third party which is likely going to resell or insure the debt, involving fourth parties.

If you just buy the house like you buy anything else, everything is negotiable.

amalcon• 7 years ago

Honestly, the best way to do this is to just pay an attorney who specializes in it. They will just tell you what you're agreeing to, and you can actually believe them since they are your attorney. It's not cheap, but not too expensive on the scale of a real estate transaction.

notimetorelax• 7 years ago

This is exactly what they hope the buyer would think. Many things in those contacts are negotiable.

gnopgnip2• 7 years ago

You should be receiving a copy of the majority of these documents at least three days before closing to review

jedberg• 7 years ago

Fun related story. I bought my first house when I was working for reddit, and brought in the stack of papers to review at lunch. Steve, reddit's founder, looks over and asks what the papers are for and I tell him for the purchase of my house.

He stands up, and says incredulously, "That is completely ridiculous. I sold reddit for a lot more than price of that house, and the contract was only a few pages. What the hell is in that packet?!" I couldn't help but agree with him.

Waterluvian2• 7 years ago

Hahahaha. But how many houses are sold annually vs. how many reddits?

tomohawk• 7 years ago

After the last recession, the abomination known as Dodd-Frank "fixed" things by requiring massively more paperwork than before. It just made the whole home buying process more expensive and less accountable. For example, even though you pay the appraiser, you are not allowed to pick the appraiser or fire them. We had a complete incompetent come out to do an appraisal (lost 3 times trying to find the place - delaying settlement) (unable to determine basic things about the property, delaying settlement) ... and there was nothing anyone could do.

all_blue_chucks• 7 years ago

Your edits don't matter unless the counter-party initials them.

cwkoss3• 7 years ago

The author is not nearly subversive enough.

The really subversive action is to start a paper trail reporting every instance of your co-workers falsly certifying in cases where they had insufficient knowledge.

macspoofing• 7 years ago

There has to be a process around defining what 'essential obligations and expenditures' means for the purposes of signing off on procurement - even if it the definition is 'because my boss says so'.

If not, this is the typical disconnect between defining processes (and laws and regulations and heck, even software requirements) and the practical aspects of actually implementing it. I'm sure it sounded good to whoever put this process together that only 'essential obligations' are procured because defining processes is easy and fun! Abiding by them is hard work.

KorematsuFred• 7 years ago

One of the best examples of this is US Student Visa system.

US Consulates in India hold hundreds of events each year to entice Indian students to USA. They also actively tell students about their wonderful OPT and CPT programs and how they can convert to H1B later.

When an Indian student appears before the consulate officer the student must convince the officer that he/she will promptly return back to India after studies are completed. Even though it is perfectly legal to get a student visa, then work on OPT and get your H1B through lottery it is not something you can admit to the visa officer.

qqbXsiVvwgc75SB• 7 years ago

This normalization of deviance can burn you for playing along.

In a previous job at an F100 company we routinely used contractors for a lot of day to day work. Every other week we had to sign a statement certifying the number of hours worked. This was fine for the first couple of years when we only had about a dozen contractors split across two managers.

As our organization grew, so did the number of contractors, mostly under a third manager at a different site. Due to peculiarities about how this large, blue logoed F100 company dealt with purchasing and contractors, I and a peer still had to sign the certifications instead of the third manager. We both protested (verbally, which was a mistake in hindsight) but were told "just go ahead it's how we do things."

Funny thing. That third manager, working out of our sight with their army of contractors at another site? Yeah. They were colluding with the contracting agency to overbill the company.

My peer left for unrelated reasons. The colluding manager left for another company as the scheme was coming to light. I spent a week being grilled by the company's purchasing team and eventually company lawyers about my "participation" in the scheme. Because, of course, I had signed all of these timesheets certifying that the hours worked were true.

In the end as far as I can tell the only penalty was for the contracting agency to be barred from working with the company again (they closed, formed a new LLC, and started right up again within a year). I got dinged professionally as the only manager left holding the bag so to speak.

So, if you find yourself in that sort of situation where you're being pressured to accommodate the process because that's how we've always done it, get it in writing absolving you of any responsibility for signing off.

ptmcc• 7 years ago

I used to work for a consulting/contracting company, with 6-10 reports at any given time. I was responsible for reviewing and approving their time sheets.

Except that, due to the nature of the business, I didn't see or even communicate with most of my reports on a daily or even weekly basis. They were working on different projects under different contracts for different customers in different locations. My manager responsibilities were an add-on to my own near-full-time billable work.

I raised my personal concerns to my own manager(s) that I did not feel that I could confidently and truthfully review and approve my reports' timesheets. Their response was effectively "just go with it, it's the way it works". Basically I was told to rubber stamp them with my name as the approver.

I don't necessarily believe that anyone was maliciously abusing the system, but I definitely believe that casual and hard-to-prove overbilling was a regular occurrence.

I don't work there anymore.

TallGuyShort3• 7 years ago

This bothers me as well. I've seen an employment contract that stated any hand-written addenda were invalid, so the idea of crossing out a clause or correcting it is at least partially defeated. Some other things I've tried:

- Instead of signing, I write (quickly, to appear like I'm signing, but legibly enough that no one can later claim I wrote anything else) "unable to comply", "documentation not received", or something like that. I haven't tried this in situations where I knew someone would check, but when I have tried it no one has noticed. If they ever attempt to use it against me I imagine it won't get very far. As a side-note, I also write "Fake Name" when asked to sign credit card receipts and in 13+ years not one person ever noticed, which is how I know that it's useless for fraud prevention.

- If I am asked to sign a very large complicated form, especially when it's something that should have been sent to me in advance (which I usually request), I will stand there and read it, making notes as I go through to help myself understand it. When they rush me, I then give them the lecture about how it either doesn't matter and I shouldn't have to sign it to proceed, or it does matter and they shouldn't ask me to sign it without reading it. They are welcome to get my money at a later date, or wait for me to read it. On one occasion I had to sign a massive agreement to buy a TV. I stood there reading it until a manager came over and, wanting to make the sale and let his rep get back to work, signed a copy of the agreement stating that the store would honor the warranty even though I hadn't signed.

lotophage• 7 years ago

I've seen an employment contract that stated any hand-written addenda were invalid, so the idea of crossing out a clause or correcting it is at least partially defeated

Couldn't you just cross out that line?

joncrane• 7 years ago

The signature is used for follow up when a transaction is reported as fraudulent. It's never checked proactively.

TallGuyShort3• 7 years ago

What incentive do people have to sign their name correctly on legitimate transactions then? If I plan on reporting a transaction is fraudulent, I just sign my name weird and make sure they don't have cameras? I don't understand how this helps.

What I thought was supposed to happen is you're supposed to have signed your name on the back of the card and they check that your receipt matches the card, and it's a weak form of 2FA.

SimonPStevens• 7 years ago

All the stories in this thread about people having to sign stuff without reading it. I guess this just makes them all unenforceable in reality if anyone actually challenged them.

Perhaps this is why anything actually serious I've ever signed requires witnesses.

deckar01• 7 years ago

I can’t know whether each item we purchase is essential. Many of them are highly technical.
The subversive way is to circumvent the requirement to lie. Can you cross out the offending sentence on the form each month before you sign it? ... I have used this method.

This seems like terrible advice. It pretty much guarantees that no one is accountable and the problem will only get worse. Don't sign anything until the necessary evidence is provided and be prepared to reject purchases that lack justification. Inaction and delegation are powerful tools in the hands of a bureaucrat, use them.

awinter-py• 7 years ago

diane vaughan talks about this stuff in the challenger book -- she found claims of fact by SMEs that were vetoed by nasa managers, and thinks that this is one mechanism for groups to leak risk.

DoctorOetker• 7 years ago

Would it be possible to require similar signed forms from those below you, until the bottom? If an unwarranted expense was made, the whole chain will be responsible, and the discussion can then finally focus on how to actually specify sane rules and requirements (i.e. normal volumes of low expenses get ignored, larger expenses need to be vetted by multiple people on the same level etc...)

harrisonjackson• 7 years ago

My first salaried job had an employment agreement that said I would pay the company to work there instead of getting paid. I had it fixed before signing, but I was employee #5.......

tabtab• 7 years ago

If you are between a rock and a hard place like in the article, it's best to keep a copy of the email where you object to the language, and store a copy at home. It shows you made a reasonable attempt to remedy the problem if it ever turns into a big case against you.

danbmil992• 7 years ago

I once bought a house. It was advertised as sitting on "an acre plus".

When we started doing the paperwork we noticed it was written as .85 acres.

But the tax map was broken up into two parcels, one of which was clearly about 1/4 as large as the other. They were both marked as about 40% of an acre.

Everyone involved in the deal, including my spouse at the time, was upset when I said that we had to go walk the property and figure this out. Apparently nobody gave a crap about half an acre here or there, even though this represented about half of the property under discussion.

I finally got my way. The real estate broker took one of those DaVinci wheels and, in his fancy loafers, in the pouring rain, walked the wheel through tick infested woods until he had surveyed the entire property.

It was .51 acres

fred_is_fred• 7 years ago

For the commission the guy got for doing the relative;ly simple job of selling a house it was frankly the least he could do.

danbmil992• 7 years ago

Having been through the hell of buying property twice in my life, I say take the real estate brokers out before you even get to the lawyers and accountants. There's no rational way to account for them taking 5% or more off every transaction, especially with the price inflation of the last few years.

chisleu• 7 years ago

They call it "shadow IT" but I like to call it "the cuff system".

Putting a fun antiquated name on things like designing one off, and potentially dangerous IT infrastructure because you can't get anyone to fix what is wrong is itself wrong. It's part of the problem. It's a growing cause of personal information leaks and people shouldn't celebrate encouraging it.

hollander2• 7 years ago

How about signing under protest? So you sign, but at the same time you signal that you're not OK with the situation. In the Netherlands this is often used if you don't agree with the amount you have to pay for something. When you sign under protest, you admit that you got the products or service you requested, but you are not satisfied with the quality or the price.

Dear Bureaucrat, my job wants me to lie

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