Filling out forms
As a soldier, it is my job to spend about 3 hours per week filling out redundant paperwork asking for my name, rank, social security number, unit, MOS, and any number of other pieces of information, ranging from my address to my marital status to my security clearance. Sometimes I'll fill out forms requiring medical information, details about my POV (personally owned vehicle), driver's license, insurance or something else like that. Also, any form that I have to fill out usually needs to be filled out for my platoon, company, battalion, and possibly brigade or even post administrators. Then throw in a 30% chance that these forms will be lost, or incorrectly formatted, or otherwise unusable, and you can understand why my coworkers and I spend so much time on paperwork.
So one day while I'm turning in some forms to my platoon sergeant, I notice the PSG berating one of my fellow specialists for turning in a form filled out in blue ink. Fair enough, there's a lesson learned. He went downstairs and printed another copy of these forms with a printer that had run out of black ink - making the entire form's printed text and lines colored blue. Undeterred, he proceeded to fill out the form with a black pen, believing that he had followed instructions. So he brings up this freshly printed blue form (but filled out with black ink) and turns it into the platoon sergeant.
My platoon sergeant was livid, and the rest of us were rolling with laughter. The best part is that this guy didn't even mean to do this as a joke, and was totally sincere in turning in the paperwork.
So one day while I'm turning in some forms to my platoon sergeant, I notice the PSG berating one of my fellow specialists for turning in a form filled out in blue ink. Fair enough, there's a lesson learned. He went downstairs and printed another copy of these forms with a printer that had run out of black ink - making the entire form's printed text and lines colored blue. Undeterred, he proceeded to fill out the form with a black pen, believing that he had followed instructions. So he brings up this freshly printed blue form (but filled out with black ink) and turns it into the platoon sergeant.
My platoon sergeant was livid, and the rest of us were rolling with laughter. The best part is that this guy didn't even mean to do this as a joke, and was totally sincere in turning in the paperwork.
Classic. I also love how every cup full of writing implements on every O-room and CQ desk in the Army is full of nothing but blue pens and pencils. Why would you do that?
Also, when I'm feeling contrary, I like to bring up the point that the whole purpose of blue pens in the first place is to make it clear which copy of a document is the original. I suppose this is less reliable now that color copiers are somewhat more common, but it still makes a lot of sense. Too much for the Army, apparently.
Posted by
Evan |
April 27, 2008 11:37 AM
Thats freaking hilarious
Posted by
adameepoo |
April 27, 2008 8:37 PM
I always wondered what they did with this information that we constantly gave them. I even worked in Brigade S-1 and still had no idea. We would constantly collect all of these people's information, just to stick it in their file. And no one would ever look at that file until the soldier PCS'd, then we'd give it to them. I mean, why would I need to keep a record of a guy's boot size in his file? Even if for some crazy reason I needed to know this, it would be quicker to just ask the guy.
And with all of this identity theft and stuff in America, it's amazing that we throw around social security numbers like it's part of our name. Seriously, a random E-1 could probably get a colonel's social security number if he felt like making the effort.
Posted by
Anonymous |
December 28, 2011 7:49 PM