Ever wonder why things are screwed up?

Although this story is not exactly in the same vein as Albert's I'd like to offer it as an example of everyday insanity from working life,sometimes when I think of this story it's seems even funnier than when it first happened,it is 100% true and probably is repeated worldwide on a daily basis in different forms.
It's a bit long winded but...........

I work as a manager in a large chemical plant,I used to work in an older plant a few years back,breakdowns were commonplace and part of my responsibilities was organising repairs.
There's always been a large political devide between engineering and production,what goes with that is a long history of mistrust and lack of respect for each others roles,needless to say the engineering staff thought production were on the whole pretty dumb and by definition I was not much further up the totem pole than my production operators especially since I had the combination of being reasonably young and pretty new in this role.

Also as a member of shift production in general our own day shift managers tended to look down on us.
The history of this annoyed me, as a logical kind of guy I thought we were all working for the same goal.

Anyway at the start of shift one morning I arrived to discover on of our lines were down,I prepared the permit for the job and soon the problem was discovered to be a large industrial magnet-about 8 inches high.
As I watched through a window I saw a bigger and bigger delegation of engineers and my own superiors gather to look at this magnet which had been brought up as evidence to prove production shift incompetence.
The magnet had clearly been damaged,it had score marks.
Soon strips were being tore off production.
"It's been forced in" remarked the engineering manager.
"Complete morons" remarked the plant manager "why do we play these guys £18k a year?"
On and on it went,some of our magnets were handed and by definition could only fit in a certain way-it was designed to interlock but only in one direction.
Although the magnet had been buckled the main damage had been done to it's housing which needed to be replaced.
Clearly it was the repetition of forcing that had caused the housing to eventually fail.

This tirade of scorn went on and on,and on.
It was again clear that I was managing a bunch of morons and not doing a very good job at that.
I was bored and annoyed,I took the magnet to be cleaned and refitted.

Eventually I tracked down two of my team and asked one of them to refit the magnet, I was so exasperated I could hardly speak "Pat,get this magnet back into slurry unit 7 would you?" he duly left to fit the thing.
About half an hour later I checked my computer screen and saw the line was back up and running,good I thought ........

Leaving for lunch I popped my head into my team's canteen...
Several faces peered up at me.

"Ben what was wrong with that magnet?" Pat,the guy who refitted it asked.

"Pat it's a long story,too painful to go into,why do you ask?" I replied.

"Well" he said "it's just that I had to knock the fu*& out of it with a scaffolding pole to get it back in"........................................

As Homer Simpson said "it's funny cause it's true".
More amazingly we are are number one in the world at what we do

Since we're totally off audiophile topics, I'll share a story of equal absurdity to Ben's tale.

A few years ago, I allowed my driving license to expire by a couple of days. I went to the office, passed my renewal test, was assessed a small fine for the delinquency, had my picture taken and went to pay for my new license. The state at that time did not accept credit/debit cards, only checks or cash. The clerk refused to accept any form of identification for my check other than a driving license. I said to her, "Well, there it is, coming out of the laminating machine, use it."

"I can't, sir, you haven't paid for it yet."

"Well then, use my old one."

"I can't, sir, it has expired."

"Would you call your supervisor, please?"

The supervisor arrived, a large, untidy, redneck woman with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. She listened to explanations then turned to the clerk and remarked, "Ethel, you a goddam idiot!" (sic)

She took my check, handed me the new license, and sent me on my way.

Let's hear it for the State of Florida Division of Motor Vehicles.

will

Bishopwell, your story reminds me of a story I heard about someone who used a new credit card that he had fogotten to sign the back of.

The clerk took his card without checking the back for his signature.

She then ran it through the credit card machine and had him sign the receipt that was printed out.

As she was handing back his credit card, she remembered to turn it over and look for his signature.

Not seeing his signature, she asked him to sign the card.

She then compared his signature on the receipt to his signature on the card, and viola, they matched!

"Thank you, sir - have a good day" were her next words.

I recently bought a house in a different state. The new state was concerned because they had no tax returns on file from me. So, they made up three back years worth of taxes, with a net due amount of $0. I have my attorney send in my previous tax forms from my privious state of residence with a letter of explanation. In the mean time I begin recieving letters offering me amnesty for back taxes. I call the number and ask what I owe. The response "$0, never mind the letter, just forget about it". The letters keep coming, I keep calling back and keep getting the same response. A couple of days ago I get a letter, with a bill for $638.33 indicating that a collection agency has been hired to collect my back taxes with interest and penalties for failing to respond. I should have folowed my instincts and sent them a check for $0. Why is it when ever bureaucracies decide to reinvent the wheel, the wheel goes round and round yet never goes anywhere, then stops with a flat that appears to be by design.

Railroads aren't 4ft something wide....
at least not in the US... but it's a nice story anyhow.

It does illustrate what goes wrong with big old organizations that require compatibility back to the year one. Like IBM, and Microsoft (will if they keep it up) eventually will end up that way... maybe that's just how things always go? Hmmmm...