Ah..Bureaucracy

Question: How many people does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: At least 3.

I had a humorous experience yesterday that I want to share.  It has no direct relationship with software development, but if you ever dealt with a business processes that seemed overly bureaucratic, you can laugh with me.

As always, I have omitted details to protect the innocent and keep the post short.

I was waiting for a friend at a place of business.  This business is well established having several offices throughout the city.  A serviceman walked in and went up to the front desk.

Serviceman: "I am here to replace 2 burned out florescent light bulbs in the hallway."

Receptionist: "Sure, go ahead."

Serviceman: "Do you have the service approval?"

Receptionist: "The what?"

Serviceman: "The approval.  I need approval before I can replace the bulbs."

Receptionist: "I never heard of that before."

Serviceman: "You need to contact the service department at the home office to get the approval." (FYI: the ‘home office’ is in another city)

Receptionist: "Ok.  I need to look up the phone number."

(jump ahead a minute)

Receptionist: "I could not find the number, but I did find this memo for the approval."

Serviceman:  "That is it.  I will go and change them now."

(jump ahead another minute)

Serviceman: "All done."

Receptionist: "Bye."

(Total Time = 5 minutes)

So let’s crunch some numbers.  One serviceman to replace the bulbs, plus one receptionist to present the approval, plus (at least) one person to draft and send the approval, equals 3 people to complete a one minute task to replace a couple light bulbs (note: I am focusing on what it takes to get them fixed, which is why I did not include one person to request the service department replace the bulbs).

Would it not make more sense to send the serviceman the approval with the service request?  This way the receptionist could deal with the customers that were lining up behind the serviceman.  Then again, why bother drafting an approval form for such a trivial task?  Oh well, I am sure it looks good on paper.