Rube

Dear Diary...LOL, some days I wonder if I'm just crazy because I seem to be the only one who scratches their head over Rube Goldberg practices.



We have to document every financial expenditure at work. It's a good practice because we do get audited every few years. It's understood at my job everything is documented. We have to go to training to know all the documentation rules for audits.

I had a form returned to me yesterday because a change in the total dollar amt we were spending changed. No problem. The new contract came in and I scanned it into a 3 page PDF document. First page was the approval form with a small space for the description details of what we were spending. The total dollar amount was written into the box that said Total. There was a brief description of the total. The contract was scanned in as pages 2 and 3. I wrote in the small description box to see attached for details.

NO! It was returned to me because the entire description had to be in the 2 inch space, it could not be attached, even tho it was in a single PDF document.

The person who returned it said it could not be in separate pages. The full description had to be on one page. She said it was for auditing purposes.

Since I had a PDF and a Excel doc I had to redo the Excel doc so there was more room than the 2 inches available. Then I had to shrink the PDF description down a number of times to fit in the available space. I cut it and then taped it onto the form and then scanned that so the description was on a single page. Took me 45 mins to do the whole thing. (Mostly because I had to redo the Excel form and unprotect and protect fields, PITA really). Scanning the pages also takes time.

Eventually she admitted it was so her boss who has to sign it didn't have to flip the page to read the detail. Sooooo, I spent an extra 45 mins on this stupid document not because of auditing purposes but so HER BOSS DIDN'T HAVE TO FLIP TO PAGE 2 TO SEE THE DETAIL.
Flipping the page might have taken him 1/10 of a second. But she makes me spend 45 mins. redoing the form when a single page format is not required for auditing purposes.

No wonder we can never get anything done timely at the university.