The good old civil service
I did a civil service contract at the turn of the millennium, and one thing that puzzled me for weeks was that any email sent to the Head of Department was incredibly slow, the fastest reply would take three days. Often we were in need of urgent replies since the HoD micromanaged everything, no movement unless the issue was cleared with him first. Contacting him by phone was frowned upon and usually that was diverted to his PA who would take a note, ask him then phone back 24 hours later. But of course the answer would be useless because the PA didn't understand the question. Knocking on his door was a hanging offence and there would usually be all of the HoDs huddling together somewhere avoiding the workers.
I thought I'd have a crack at solving the email delays - but the server logs just showed delivered, then opened about 16:30 then responded to about 17:00 two days later, so just a problem with boss not reading mail until late in the day and taking ages to reply.
I visited the PA to ask if they could push the boss to answering faster. Then she explained the system. Although HoD had a computer and a mail account he thought touching a computer was for lesser mortals. So he had given his log on details to his PA and permitted her to access his mail when he left the office about 16:00. The PA printed copies of all mail and then put the pages into a leather book with glassine paper separators and left that book on his desk. He would then annotate each email the next day using a fountain pen and leave the book on his desk when he left. PA then took the book after printing off new emails, stripped out the pages, copied them and filed the originals, re-inserted the new mails and went home because it was after 17:00. The next day the PA would take the previous day's annotated copies into the HoD's office and type the replies and send them. At the end of the day of course because HoD didn't like being disturbed.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
