Bureaucracy

Some people thought that the most stressful job on Gaia was that of the Continental Rescue Corps, zipping around the planet with drones into remote and often dangerous situations to rescue people in grave situations. Some people thought that it was the ship crews and the infantry, vigilantly waiting for the possibility of war and learning their skills and their routines as they eternally waited nervously. Some people thought that it was the scientists of the Gaian Planetary Resource Center, with the weight of the human race’s progress on their shoulders. Azat Davidyam, however, knew that those people were all wrong (especially the last category — he’d seen too many movie requisition requests to ever believe that). The most stressful job on all of Gaia was that of the humble Resource Requisition Request Reviewer, the good old 4Rs, or “the bureaucrats” as the scientists asking for things would call them.

Azat walked to the Aphelion office he shared with his fellow 4Rs, and popped open his can of Joyrider Juice (invented by a real Joyrider!, a slogan on the bright blue can proclaimed), with the pop of separating metal and the fizz of the carbonated beverage music to his ears. Years ago, Azat would have balked at the idea of a drink that apparently needed acres of space on a mostly uninhabited continent for its unsupervised development, but now he didn’t care — it tasted good and it kept him awake through the day, so he drank it. As the building entered his sight, Azat recalled that Abdul-Aziz had quit yesterday, and in a huge blowout too; Azat was going to have to show whoever his coworker’s replacement was (poor bastard) the ropes, much as Abdul-Aziz had done for him.

When he entered the building, headed down the right hallway, and entered the room third door to the left, Azat saw the woman who would be sharing the office with him from here on out: a nervous-looking brunette with a ponytail. A glance confirmed a suspicion — a brand new degree was propped up on her desk, she was a recent graduate, of Aphelion Planetary University, apparently. Azat also noted that Abdul-Aziz’s series of notes and lists were gone; that seemed kind od cruel. He tossed his now-empty can into the wastebasket and approached her, extending a hand. “Welcome to our little slice of hell. I’m Azat.” The woman blinked at him, and then met the handshake. “Um... hello! My name is Felicja. The supervisor told me you would show me the ropes?” Azat nodded, a touch ruefully. “Right, yeah, it’s only responsible of me.” He sighed. “Let’s... just do a bit of on-the-job training, yeah?”

Azat had Felicja turn on her console — he’d get onto his own when he’d shown her some of the ropes, but for now, well, the newbie would need his help. “We get the requisitions in semiweekly, and we take a few steps to get them done as efficiently as we pray we can. You’ll want the “Incoming” folder.” Felicja had already been navigating the mouse towards it, and she nodded, a focused expression on her face. Azat struggled not to smirk — he’d be highly impressed if that professionalism lasted. “The first couple of steps we take care of involve grouping the requisition requests we get properly,” Azat explained... and got a confused look from his coworker in response. “Grouping them? Shouldn’t that be taken care of automatically?”

Azat giggled a little in response, drawing a concerned look from Felicja, and then he continued on smoothly. “Mostly it is. We're the poor bastards who have to resolve the “differences” between the scientists and facility admins and the higher-ups though. That means that we're the ones who have to pick up the slack on all of the politicking and naming arguments that happen here. And they won't put the VIs on it because they always do something that has someone screaming at the "political implications" of some automatic and sensible correction they make, and, my God the way they get hung up on these fucking forms..." Azat hadn't kept up on politics when in college, but when half of your politics takes place through toying with the bureaucracy..."

Azat sighed. "I took care of most of the continental step already late last night, but we still have to group up Iris-Hong. Put it into that search bar there.” *Click.* Felicja began to speak. “Well, see, we’ve got a few resource requisitions here but it seems all grouped up to me—” “Now hit merge, and search Iris, and then merge the two categories.” *Click. Taptaptaptap. Click.* Felicja let out an “Oh.” Azat nodded in response. “Now, do the same for Hong.” “...oh.” *Click. Taptaptaptap. Click.”

Felicja piped up once again. “Well, OK, I get why we have to do this, I guess... What’s after the continents?” The more senior bureaucratic worker couldn’t keep the giggle out of his voice. “Now... search up Hong-Iris.” The new employee turned to look at Azat, gaping. “Really?! How many entries does this continent have?” His giggle continued as he explained. “Just these four. Unless they get drunk and put in ‘Irish Song’. Or... uh... Danbaishi is something I saw just once, I don’t know what the hell that was about, had a lot of diacritics on it. Anyway, we’re going to move on to the sub-regions now. We’ll start by checking Nautilus.”

Felicja navigated over promptly. “Okay... do we start with Gas Outpost One? Hmm... isn’t that the big thing out on Nautilus? Weird there’s only a couple of reports then...” Azat chuckled again, now doing so with disturbing frequency. “Ah, you’ll need to check ‘Gazovyy Forpost Odin’, ninety percent of the reports from there are under that because the admins there are nuts.” Felicja, in response, paused and pinched her nose, closing her eyes. “[i]Bzdura[/i]... the list they have on here doesn’t have most of these... instead of walking me through step by step, do you have a list I could just use to do this faster?”

Azat’s giggles slowly began the transition into full laughter as he handed her a packet from his desk — several pages thick. “You can have the one I made for now, haha. We’ve got a half hour or so, at least usually,” he explained as he turned on his computer, while she stared despairingly at the packet. “B— wh— [i]why??[/i] Why is this so unnecessarily complicated? Who would do this?” Azat was laughing fully now, a half-unhinged sort of laughter. “Gaians!” Felicja made an undisguisedly upset noise. “But— aren’t we supposed to be all sleek and efficient? That’s what the recruiters told me...” she muttered, quietly.

Azat just laughed harder.