8 ms·

I agree wholeheartedly! This is exactly what i was thinking the entire time. Like, does this guy think this single woman is responsible for the kafka-esque trap

I agree wholeheartedly! This is exactly what i was thinking the entire time. Like, does this guy think this single woman is responsible for the kafka-esque trap they're both in? Will the 0.5% uptick in toner cost for the year cause the administration to rethink their requirements? He's just taken the immense weight and pain he holds for this process, undeservedly, and placed it upon another undeserving person, then laughed at her anguish. Yes, life is hard, but surely we can bear our troubles in a way that don't make others harder to bear. Or at least aim your troubles at someone who has any power at all to change things! Find a better way to fight the system, that isn't just stabbing other people trapped in the box with you

john_strinlai 7mo ago
>then laughed at her anguish. anguish? as in, "excruciating pain" or "agonizing torment"? i dont understand where the "anguish" comes from. he didnt yell at her, berate her, hit her, cause her to be fired, submit a malicious complaint, or anything of the sort. he sent her a long fax. oh no! if i was in her position, i would shrug and hand my boss the 500 pieces of paper. if you are just a cog in the machine, it is not mentally healthy to take on the responsibility of more than a cog. caring is the responsibility of non-cogs. edit: today i learned that sending a long fax is apparently a method of torture, causing mental anguish to the receiver. my bad. profuse apologies to anyone i have sent a longer fax to, i had no idea the mental damage i was causing. i can only hope that god will forgive my sins.
- mothballed 7mo ago
  This is exactly how it's handled from my limited dealings with the machine. Literally no one gives a shit if you make their job 'harder.' They have an endless treadmill of things to do. Whether it's your 500 page fax or 500 people with a 1 page fax is of no consequence to them. They will work at the same pace either way. In fact their boss might like it because they can try to use it to argue for more headcount which is one of the ways to gain more prestige/power for the managers. I know the things HN hates most are analogies and anecdotes, but here's a chance to torture myself by offering one. I sat down on day at the BMV, to register a kayak. Literally everyone is my state except the wildlife enforcement officers think the whole idea is absolutely absurdly retarded. This was in a jam packed BMV with a long line. No one but one elderly lady even knew how to do it, because most people don't submit themselves to such a stupid idea as registering their kayak, even though it was required. A lady sat down with me, PECKED all the information in over a period of 15 minutes. Then showed me the form. It had the wrong hull number on it, so I told her, and she had to redo it all over again pecking it in for another 15 minutes. After this she still got the hull number wrong. Another 15 minutes later, and she got the hull number yet again. Finally She did it again and still got the hull number wrong yet again and I just gave up and accepted the registration she gave me even though it was completely worthless to me. Not a single person at the BMV gave a single shit that this took this long nor the fact it would hold everyone up, everyone has an endless list of shit to do and there will be more waiting for them tomorrow. If it causes the machine to slow down they could not give one single fuck. They are not the least bit bothered.
  - TeMPOraL 7mo ago
    > Literally no one gives a shit if you make their job 'harder.' They have an endless treadmill of things to do. Whether it's your 500 page fax or 500 people with a 1 page fax is of no consequence to them. They will work at the same pace either way. As they should. They're in this for the long run. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Which means all the author did was to fuck over a couple dozen other disabled people trying to navigate the process. Good job. Were I the reader that donated them that $20, I'd issue a charge back now.
    - catapart 7mo ago
      the author didn't make anything harder for anyone because the "fax" wasn't ever even printed, much less caused a backup or even a slowdown at all. the giveaway was having the karen call back to request the person stop. the initial phone call undoubtedly happened, but the fax was consumed by the same systems used in medical offices all around the country, which means that it arrived as a pdf in some repository and it was attached to the client's records in the system. the whole "it has to be a fax" thing is a HIPPA compliance measure about chain of custody, rather than a technological requirement. it "could" be an email, but the data can never at any point be stored in certain ways or in certain locales, or whatever. since most email can't guarantee that, the policies are to only use fax, but then they use a service or application (that provides financial and legal guarantees of custody) to receive incoming faxes as pdfs. sometimes, even as attachments on emails.
      - TeMPOraL 7mo ago
        Irrelevant. Even if you're right, and not merely oblivious to the space of possible deployments of fax handling support in modern offices, the author (or narrator) is clearly proud of their behavior in situation (or story) they posted, so my comment stands.
        TheOtherHobbes 7mo ago
        The text leans heavily ChatGPT. I suspect this is a revenge fantasy rather than something that actually happened. As for who's responsible - it's a mix. Some people who deal with these situations are doing their jobs because they have no choice. Some are active sadists and do the job because they get to bully the weak. This happens a lot in benefits management, and also in immigration, in most countries.
- catapart 7mo ago
  exactly this. I didn't put you in a bad job; you - and to a large extent, your society - did. you are the face of the machine that I am trying to deal with. if you don't want to be that face, go be the face of some other machine. but if you pick up a phone to talk to a client or customer, you are a representation of an organization, and you will be treated as such. fix you mind to understand that people are trying to find the right things to say to you to get what they need at that moment. no different from someone putting in quarters to get a soda from a vending machine. I do X, I get Y. if there is a breakdown in getting Y, I will try other things beyond X. so, in this example, I tried to be reasonable; I tried to make this simple for me while simultaneously making it simple for both you and the machine you are representing. if it is the machine that prevents you from accepting that simplicity, then explain as much as they let you, apologize like a human being for the failings of the machine you represent, and ignore literally all of the rest of it. you can only do what you can do. they can only get what they can get. no amount of hostility will change the policy, but hostility will surely get different (sometimes better; not often) results than acquiescence. recognize that it's not hostility towards you and - god forbid - enjoy the fact that someone else notices how fucking shitty the machine you work for is. if you're a real superstar, take note of the specific situation and place it somewhere you can provide a collection of specific situations for review.
  - gentoo 7mo ago
    The human faces of the machine are our only hope. The alternative is, in the short term, a machine face of the machine, whom you can't argue with and who will summarily deny your benefits with no chance of appeal. In the long term, the alternative is no machine at all. The purpose of this machine is, ultimately, to give people government benefits. The people who hate that the government gives out benefits at all, when in power, do everything they can to make the machine more hostile and less functional. They then take anecdotes like these as evidence that the machine should be smaller and do less. Karen is not your enemy, the policy makers who want to give Karen less agency (and who make rules like "you can't accept emails") are your enemies. They want you to hate Karen and Karen to hate you. Ultimately they want to fire Karen and reduce government disbursements to zero. They are reading this thread with glee. See, e.g., the case studies in https://virginia-eubanks.com/automating-inequality/ https://virginia-eubanks.com/automating-inequality/.
- volkercraig 7mo ago
  > if i was in her position, i would shrug and hand my boss the 500 pieces of paper. yeah honestly. If I was in that position I'd probably think it's funny and just stick the whole stack in a folder and laugh about the dumb process.
Etherlord87 7mo ago
I see this type of an argumentation very often and I strongly disagree. You're removing all responsibility from an actor that is a part of a bigger thing. Imagine if you slapped someone on his hand for doing something wrong, and he or someone else argued what you did is wrong because it wasn't that hand that has offended. I'm an antitheist but the Bible (gospels) put it well "The student is not above his master" [translation mine] - which means if you follow said master you have to share responsibility for his doings or the doings of the gang as a whole. From the perspective of the effect, if you make life of an employee miserable, the employee is more likely to resign or ask for a raise, this does apply some pressure. Moreover, consider what happens if your argument convinces too many people: malevolent actors can just wall themselves with "innocent" people and get away with pretty much anything.
- watwut 7mo ago
  No amount of beating low level employees will change whether they can accept pdf sent by email or not. And also, they are not supposed to use their intuitive ideas about what is and what is not dangerous use of software. When they do use their intuitive ideas, hacks happen. Karen here doing what she was told and accepting only formats that her organization security team told her to do is Karen doing the correct thing. We are on HN. People who are responsible for overreaching unreasonable security rules ... are basically us. And we are all paid way more then Karen, but are the first to call Karen an idiot when the hack happens. Karen does not know why pdf is different from doc or whatever. Nor is she required to know.
  - trinsic2 7mo ago
    Disagree. Employees need to be responsible and make their voices heard. The whole thing was justified. We enable nightmares with our acquiescence.
    - perching_aix 7mo ago
      And how does the author (or you) know she doesn't keep raising this? Edit: can't even confirm that it really is only fax and physical mail that's available; on a cursory search, tackling this fully online is already well possible: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47544562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47544562
nxobject 7mo ago
As an alternate framing, with the paperwork be giving her what she needs to go to her boss and escalate, and their boss as needed - the paperwork as a magic ticket for everyone to advocate. To qualify that, the fax is a limited resource, and I'd be concerned about how what other things the fax might be needed for to help other people in a timely manner...
- axus 7mo ago
  Perhaps the fax-related expenses would be the magic ticket their boss needed to justify security scanning of emails with PDFs. I just listened to Trump brag for ten minutes about replacing the thousand-dollar signing pens. The post is tagged non-fiction, but it ignores the option to "Complete your Disabilty Update Report Online (https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/text-cdrs-ussi.htm https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/text-cdrs-ussi.htm), which I found after following the link in the first sentence. The form is an embedded iFrame from "Adobe Acrobat Sign", supposedly pure Javascript . It would be a bigger story if this form were not accessible to the disabled. The form includes a place to attach two PDF, text, or image formats. "Attachments are limited to 5MB and 25 pages".
  - snk 7mo ago
    A couple of possibilities spring to mind. Likelier that Karen lied, but maybe the 512 page fax changed the system.
    - axus 7mo ago
      The post dated March 25 2026 says "This week, I received The Letter." More likely he had a fun idea and ran with it to illustrate other problems he's had. I can say from personal experience that the people on the phone for US Social Security are enforcing inhumane policies. A relative with a speech impediment and in serious pain who was unable to travel to the office for an interview had to be ready for a phone call. If the phone wasn't answered after four rings, have to reschedule a phone call. When the phone call arrived, they had to answer questions personally without assistance or "coaching". The caller couldn't understand the relative due to the speech impediment, and the relative was in distress and having difficulty understanding the questions. But we weren't supposed to help.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
orzig 7mo ago
It's tricky, because _sometimes_ they do. And the system doesn't give you guidance on whether you're talking to someone who (officially or not) can change the process. So, based mostly on our personality, we all push a different amount before giving up. Relatable example: I needed to schedule a Pediatric appointment, her assigned Dr was on vacation, and the first receptionist stonewalled on switching Drs within the practice. The second one did it in 2m on her side and guided me to updating insurance in 2m on my side.
- ryandrake 7mo ago
  Another similar example: Since it's tax time, I had to call a us gov office with a question. The first rep claimed "their system was down" and couldn't help me. I hung up and called back. The second rep was just nasty and stonewalled me by inundating me with security questions and refusing to "verify" my identity, so I eventually hung up and called back a third time. The third rep answered my question within a few minutes, and was a thorough pleasure to deal with. I mean, I get that these guys might not be getting paid, with the government shutdown tomfoolery, but come on!
  - kelnos 6mo ago
    Isn't it just DHS that's shut down? Presumably the people you were talking to are at the IRS, and they're still getting paid.
the__alchemist 7mo ago
Other responders have replied well, so I will offer a slight augmentation: Yes, this is bad outcome for the bureaucrat, through no mistake of her own. A wrong has been committed against her - but not by the author - by her employer, and the system which employs her and sets these regulations. They cannot (Although they will if asked) claim ignorance or innocence: It is their fault alone for this experience.
cess11 7mo ago
Right, shouldn't make her workday stressful, she's just following orders.
- johnnyanmac 7mo ago
  I file this under " don't be a dick, especially to the disabled". You wonder why most bankers avoid a lot of this, despite handling one of the most stressful aspect of modern humanity? It's becsuse they tend to be thr friendliest talkers out there. They know the reputation and trust of the banking system is what keeps their money in. They can be just as slimy as a used car salesman in tactics, but we're still interfacing with a human, and humans generally like to feel like they matter. I'll admit, this is the authors bias. And we know such hackers are not the best a social cues. But taking him as his word: I can 100% visualize the kind of tone Karen made here at the author. The kind that says "I've done this 1000 times and I know how this works. I know most people won't bother. I just need to get person over with and move on". An all too familiar tone in this cold, lonely world. I'm not going to say she deserved it. But I have no sympathy either. And sadly, this is the only legal channel we have for this without any lawyer funding. I don't see any other way to really make them listen than to reveal enough inconvenience in the real world, not in a civil matter in a townhall.
  - cess11 7mo ago
    Many people go into public service with an attitude of 'I want to help people'. The catch is that unless it's some form of care or perhaps fire-fighting, there's a high risk that it'll be pretty nasty stuff. Things like denying people decency, perhaps even life, because they were slow to respond or for once didn't get help filling out some form or whatever. Throwing suffering, poor people out on the streets, and then someone else employed by the state hound them until they're almost invisible. HR people usually say the same and realise too late that they're not going to be as appreciated as they'd hoped, at least not by the people they initially thought they'd help out.
    - johnnyanmac 7mo ago
      I'm sure some do. But the federal government is the biggest employer. I see that as inevitably doing a job because its a job. I'm not saying to be perfect on the job or anything. I'm sure like most jobs it grinds on you. But I've never seen a situation where taking it out (passively or actively) on the customer directly has ever ended well. And there's many, many times where I wanted to actively do so.
robflynn 7mo ago
They attacked a fax machine, I don't think it has feelings. The woman will get over her frustration at seeing it print for two hours.
- kelvinjps10 7mo ago
  I also been on the customer service side and it's really annoying getting angry persona after angry person trying to push their frustrations on you for something you have no control.
  - robflynn 7mo ago
    Oh, me too. I started out as tech support for a dial up ISP in the 90s. It was rough. I am always polite to customer service. I just feel like it wasn't the lady that was attacked so much as it was the fax machine, the policy, the institution. She had some frustration, but it sounds like he was even polite to her, Didn't yell, didn't call her names or anything. He just opted for malicious compliance. You have me thinking about old customer service war stories now, I wanted to share one of the more ridiculous ones. A tornado came through the small town and knocked out the utility lines. Being a dial-up ISP our infrastructure was a bit messed up for a few days. Once it was all squared away we had an angry customer call and yell at us about how we were offline for a few days and how unprofessional it was to not let him know that we were going offline. That he wasn't so much mad we were offline but we should have told him so he could have planned around it. He was yelling so much. I finally just said "sir, next time we schedule a tornado I will be sure to let you know." and he accepted the answer and thanked me. People are so odd.
rwmj 7mo ago
In this case the problem can't easily be blamed on "the system". Government benefits are this way because politicians have for years blamed "benefit cheats" and "welfare queens" and other boogymen, people have voted based on this, and now the law is you have to prove you're still congenitally blind every year. The system is working, it's actually doing what the politicians and their voters want.
- realo 7mo ago
  Explain that to the Karen, then... and let her suffer, instead of the poor blind taxpayer. He never chose to be blind. He pays his taxes. He is the customer. She chose to be part of The System. She is paid to provide a service, within The System's rules. I have zero empathy for her. Everything is working as intended.
  - hooverd 7mo ago
    Hopefully you feel about the same way about every bit of vitriol levied towards tech workers.
mrexcess 7mo ago
>Like, does this guy think this single woman is responsible for the kafka-esque trap they're both in? If there's any class of individual in whom I'm willing to place greater than average trust in their ability to read vocal tones, it's probably blind people. Just sayin'.
cm11 7mo ago
This isn't a happy counterargument or anything, but (bad as it is) this is this person's job. Or rather it is the job. Their employer has customer service in order for it to buffer—in a cost efficient way—the one or many layers of people above this person from their (profitable) bad policies. It's a punching bag. And it's that because bad policy + punching bag is more profitable than good policy. It might even be the business/market. If the frustrating call leads to 50% of callers giving up (or not calling at all) and just paying something they might not owe, that's a nice net ROI. You might build a business around that, one that wouldn’t have the margins otherwise. You get the callers caving because they feel bad yelling at the unfortunate employees, meanwhile it's in the company's formal protocol to only correct it (or escalate the ticket to someone who could) after the customer has yelled long enough. There are bad customers for sure, but we also cheat good customers out of what they’re owed until they’re “bad.” The customer can yell or eat the cost. I think I can both feel bad for the employee and not place much blame on the customer given customer service as a quasi profit center.

john_strinlai 7mo ago

>then laughed at her anguish. anguish? as in, "excruciating pain" or "agonizing torment"? i dont understand where the "anguish" comes from. he didnt yell at her, berate her, hit her, cause her to be fired, submit a malicious complaint, or anything of the sort. he sent her a long fax. oh no! if i was in her position, i would shrug and hand my boss the 500 pieces of paper. if you are just a cog in the machine, it is not mentally healthy to take on the responsibility of more than a cog. caring is the responsibility of non-cogs. edit: today i learned that sending a long fax is apparently a method of torture, causing mental anguish to the receiver. my bad. profuse apologies to anyone i have sent a longer fax to, i had no idea the mental damage i was causing. i can only hope that god will forgive my sins.

mothballed 7mo ago
This is exactly how it's handled from my limited dealings with the machine. Literally no one gives a shit if you make their job 'harder.' They have an endless treadmill of things to do. Whether it's your 500 page fax or 500 people with a 1 page fax is of no consequence to them. They will work at the same pace either way. In fact their boss might like it because they can try to use it to argue for more headcount which is one of the ways to gain more prestige/power for the managers. I know the things HN hates most are analogies and anecdotes, but here's a chance to torture myself by offering one. I sat down on day at the BMV, to register a kayak. Literally everyone is my state except the wildlife enforcement officers think the whole idea is absolutely absurdly retarded. This was in a jam packed BMV with a long line. No one but one elderly lady even knew how to do it, because most people don't submit themselves to such a stupid idea as registering their kayak, even though it was required. A lady sat down with me, PECKED all the information in over a period of 15 minutes. Then showed me the form. It had the wrong hull number on it, so I told her, and she had to redo it all over again pecking it in for another 15 minutes. After this she still got the hull number wrong. Another 15 minutes later, and she got the hull number yet again. Finally She did it again and still got the hull number wrong yet again and I just gave up and accepted the registration she gave me even though it was completely worthless to me. Not a single person at the BMV gave a single shit that this took this long nor the fact it would hold everyone up, everyone has an endless list of shit to do and there will be more waiting for them tomorrow. If it causes the machine to slow down they could not give one single fuck. They are not the least bit bothered.
- TeMPOraL 7mo ago
  > Literally no one gives a shit if you make their job 'harder.' They have an endless treadmill of things to do. Whether it's your 500 page fax or 500 people with a 1 page fax is of no consequence to them. They will work at the same pace either way. As they should. They're in this for the long run. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Which means all the author did was to fuck over a couple dozen other disabled people trying to navigate the process. Good job. Were I the reader that donated them that $20, I'd issue a charge back now.
  - catapart 7mo ago
    the author didn't make anything harder for anyone because the "fax" wasn't ever even printed, much less caused a backup or even a slowdown at all. the giveaway was having the karen call back to request the person stop. the initial phone call undoubtedly happened, but the fax was consumed by the same systems used in medical offices all around the country, which means that it arrived as a pdf in some repository and it was attached to the client's records in the system. the whole "it has to be a fax" thing is a HIPPA compliance measure about chain of custody, rather than a technological requirement. it "could" be an email, but the data can never at any point be stored in certain ways or in certain locales, or whatever. since most email can't guarantee that, the policies are to only use fax, but then they use a service or application (that provides financial and legal guarantees of custody) to receive incoming faxes as pdfs. sometimes, even as attachments on emails.
    - TeMPOraL 7mo ago
      Irrelevant. Even if you're right, and not merely oblivious to the space of possible deployments of fax handling support in modern offices, the author (or narrator) is clearly proud of their behavior in situation (or story) they posted, so my comment stands.
      - TheOtherHobbes 7mo ago
        The text leans heavily ChatGPT. I suspect this is a revenge fantasy rather than something that actually happened. As for who's responsible - it's a mix. Some people who deal with these situations are doing their jobs because they have no choice. Some are active sadists and do the job because they get to bully the weak. This happens a lot in benefits management, and also in immigration, in most countries.
catapart 7mo ago
exactly this. I didn't put you in a bad job; you - and to a large extent, your society - did. you are the face of the machine that I am trying to deal with. if you don't want to be that face, go be the face of some other machine. but if you pick up a phone to talk to a client or customer, you are a representation of an organization, and you will be treated as such. fix you mind to understand that people are trying to find the right things to say to you to get what they need at that moment. no different from someone putting in quarters to get a soda from a vending machine. I do X, I get Y. if there is a breakdown in getting Y, I will try other things beyond X. so, in this example, I tried to be reasonable; I tried to make this simple for me while simultaneously making it simple for both you and the machine you are representing. if it is the machine that prevents you from accepting that simplicity, then explain as much as they let you, apologize like a human being for the failings of the machine you represent, and ignore literally all of the rest of it. you can only do what you can do. they can only get what they can get. no amount of hostility will change the policy, but hostility will surely get different (sometimes better; not often) results than acquiescence. recognize that it's not hostility towards you and - god forbid - enjoy the fact that someone else notices how fucking shitty the machine you work for is. if you're a real superstar, take note of the specific situation and place it somewhere you can provide a collection of specific situations for review.
- gentoo 7mo ago
  The human faces of the machine are our only hope. The alternative is, in the short term, a machine face of the machine, whom you can't argue with and who will summarily deny your benefits with no chance of appeal. In the long term, the alternative is no machine at all. The purpose of this machine is, ultimately, to give people government benefits. The people who hate that the government gives out benefits at all, when in power, do everything they can to make the machine more hostile and less functional. They then take anecdotes like these as evidence that the machine should be smaller and do less. Karen is not your enemy, the policy makers who want to give Karen less agency (and who make rules like "you can't accept emails") are your enemies. They want you to hate Karen and Karen to hate you. Ultimately they want to fire Karen and reduce government disbursements to zero. They are reading this thread with glee. See, e.g., the case studies in https://virginia-eubanks.com/automating-inequality/ https://virginia-eubanks.com/automating-inequality/.
volkercraig 7mo ago
> if i was in her position, i would shrug and hand my boss the 500 pieces of paper. yeah honestly. If I was in that position I'd probably think it's funny and just stick the whole stack in a folder and laugh about the dumb process.

Etherlord87 7mo ago

I see this type of an argumentation very often and I strongly disagree. You're removing all responsibility from an actor that is a part of a bigger thing. Imagine if you slapped someone on his hand for doing something wrong, and he or someone else argued what you did is wrong because it wasn't that hand that has offended. I'm an antitheist but the Bible (gospels) put it well "The student is not above his master" [translation mine] - which means if you follow said master you have to share responsibility for his doings or the doings of the gang as a whole. From the perspective of the effect, if you make life of an employee miserable, the employee is more likely to resign or ask for a raise, this does apply some pressure. Moreover, consider what happens if your argument convinces too many people: malevolent actors can just wall themselves with "innocent" people and get away with pretty much anything.

watwut 7mo ago
No amount of beating low level employees will change whether they can accept pdf sent by email or not. And also, they are not supposed to use their intuitive ideas about what is and what is not dangerous use of software. When they do use their intuitive ideas, hacks happen. Karen here doing what she was told and accepting only formats that her organization security team told her to do is Karen doing the correct thing. We are on HN. People who are responsible for overreaching unreasonable security rules ... are basically us. And we are all paid way more then Karen, but are the first to call Karen an idiot when the hack happens. Karen does not know why pdf is different from doc or whatever. Nor is she required to know.
- trinsic2 7mo ago
  Disagree. Employees need to be responsible and make their voices heard. The whole thing was justified. We enable nightmares with our acquiescence.
  - perching_aix 7mo ago
    And how does the author (or you) know she doesn't keep raising this? Edit: can't even confirm that it really is only fax and physical mail that's available; on a cursory search, tackling this fully online is already well possible: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47544562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47544562

nxobject 7mo ago

As an alternate framing, with the paperwork be giving her what she needs to go to her boss and escalate, and their boss as needed - the paperwork as a magic ticket for everyone to advocate. To qualify that, the fax is a limited resource, and I'd be concerned about how what other things the fax might be needed for to help other people in a timely manner...

axus 7mo ago
Perhaps the fax-related expenses would be the magic ticket their boss needed to justify security scanning of emails with PDFs. I just listened to Trump brag for ten minutes about replacing the thousand-dollar signing pens. The post is tagged non-fiction, but it ignores the option to "Complete your Disabilty Update Report Online (https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/text-cdrs-ussi.htm https://www.ssa.gov/ssi/text-cdrs-ussi.htm), which I found after following the link in the first sentence. The form is an embedded iFrame from "Adobe Acrobat Sign", supposedly pure Javascript . It would be a bigger story if this form were not accessible to the disabled. The form includes a place to attach two PDF, text, or image formats. "Attachments are limited to 5MB and 25 pages".
- snk 7mo ago
  A couple of possibilities spring to mind. Likelier that Karen lied, but maybe the 512 page fax changed the system.
  - axus 7mo ago
    The post dated March 25 2026 says "This week, I received The Letter." More likely he had a fun idea and ran with it to illustrate other problems he's had. I can say from personal experience that the people on the phone for US Social Security are enforcing inhumane policies. A relative with a speech impediment and in serious pain who was unable to travel to the office for an interview had to be ready for a phone call. If the phone wasn't answered after four rings, have to reschedule a phone call. When the phone call arrived, they had to answer questions personally without assistance or "coaching". The caller couldn't understand the relative due to the speech impediment, and the relative was in distress and having difficulty understanding the questions. But we weren't supposed to help.

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

orzig 7mo ago

It's tricky, because _sometimes_ they do. And the system doesn't give you guidance on whether you're talking to someone who (officially or not) can change the process. So, based mostly on our personality, we all push a different amount before giving up. Relatable example: I needed to schedule a Pediatric appointment, her assigned Dr was on vacation, and the first receptionist stonewalled on switching Drs within the practice. The second one did it in 2m on her side and guided me to updating insurance in 2m on my side.

ryandrake 7mo ago
Another similar example: Since it's tax time, I had to call a us gov office with a question. The first rep claimed "their system was down" and couldn't help me. I hung up and called back. The second rep was just nasty and stonewalled me by inundating me with security questions and refusing to "verify" my identity, so I eventually hung up and called back a third time. The third rep answered my question within a few minutes, and was a thorough pleasure to deal with. I mean, I get that these guys might not be getting paid, with the government shutdown tomfoolery, but come on!
- kelnos 6mo ago
  Isn't it just DHS that's shut down? Presumably the people you were talking to are at the IRS, and they're still getting paid.

the__alchemist 7mo ago

Other responders have replied well, so I will offer a slight augmentation: Yes, this is bad outcome for the bureaucrat, through no mistake of her own. A wrong has been committed against her - but not by the author - by her employer, and the system which employs her and sets these regulations. They cannot (Although they will if asked) claim ignorance or innocence: It is their fault alone for this experience.

cess11 7mo ago

Right, shouldn't make her workday stressful, she's just following orders.

johnnyanmac 7mo ago
I file this under " don't be a dick, especially to the disabled". You wonder why most bankers avoid a lot of this, despite handling one of the most stressful aspect of modern humanity? It's becsuse they tend to be thr friendliest talkers out there. They know the reputation and trust of the banking system is what keeps their money in. They can be just as slimy as a used car salesman in tactics, but we're still interfacing with a human, and humans generally like to feel like they matter. I'll admit, this is the authors bias. And we know such hackers are not the best a social cues. But taking him as his word: I can 100% visualize the kind of tone Karen made here at the author. The kind that says "I've done this 1000 times and I know how this works. I know most people won't bother. I just need to get person over with and move on". An all too familiar tone in this cold, lonely world. I'm not going to say she deserved it. But I have no sympathy either. And sadly, this is the only legal channel we have for this without any lawyer funding. I don't see any other way to really make them listen than to reveal enough inconvenience in the real world, not in a civil matter in a townhall.
- cess11 7mo ago
  Many people go into public service with an attitude of 'I want to help people'. The catch is that unless it's some form of care or perhaps fire-fighting, there's a high risk that it'll be pretty nasty stuff. Things like denying people decency, perhaps even life, because they were slow to respond or for once didn't get help filling out some form or whatever. Throwing suffering, poor people out on the streets, and then someone else employed by the state hound them until they're almost invisible. HR people usually say the same and realise too late that they're not going to be as appreciated as they'd hoped, at least not by the people they initially thought they'd help out.
  - johnnyanmac 7mo ago
    I'm sure some do. But the federal government is the biggest employer. I see that as inevitably doing a job because its a job. I'm not saying to be perfect on the job or anything. I'm sure like most jobs it grinds on you. But I've never seen a situation where taking it out (passively or actively) on the customer directly has ever ended well. And there's many, many times where I wanted to actively do so.

robflynn 7mo ago

They attacked a fax machine, I don't think it has feelings. The woman will get over her frustration at seeing it print for two hours.

kelvinjps10 7mo ago
I also been on the customer service side and it's really annoying getting angry persona after angry person trying to push their frustrations on you for something you have no control.
- robflynn 7mo ago
  Oh, me too. I started out as tech support for a dial up ISP in the 90s. It was rough. I am always polite to customer service. I just feel like it wasn't the lady that was attacked so much as it was the fax machine, the policy, the institution. She had some frustration, but it sounds like he was even polite to her, Didn't yell, didn't call her names or anything. He just opted for malicious compliance. You have me thinking about old customer service war stories now, I wanted to share one of the more ridiculous ones. A tornado came through the small town and knocked out the utility lines. Being a dial-up ISP our infrastructure was a bit messed up for a few days. Once it was all squared away we had an angry customer call and yell at us about how we were offline for a few days and how unprofessional it was to not let him know that we were going offline. That he wasn't so much mad we were offline but we should have told him so he could have planned around it. He was yelling so much. I finally just said "sir, next time we schedule a tornado I will be sure to let you know." and he accepted the answer and thanked me. People are so odd.

rwmj 7mo ago

In this case the problem can't easily be blamed on "the system". Government benefits are this way because politicians have for years blamed "benefit cheats" and "welfare queens" and other boogymen, people have voted based on this, and now the law is you have to prove you're still congenitally blind every year. The system is working, it's actually doing what the politicians and their voters want.

realo 7mo ago
Explain that to the Karen, then... and let her suffer, instead of the poor blind taxpayer. He never chose to be blind. He pays his taxes. He is the customer. She chose to be part of The System. She is paid to provide a service, within The System's rules. I have zero empathy for her. Everything is working as intended.
- hooverd 7mo ago
  Hopefully you feel about the same way about every bit of vitriol levied towards tech workers.

mrexcess 7mo ago

>Like, does this guy think this single woman is responsible for the kafka-esque trap they're both in? If there's any class of individual in whom I'm willing to place greater than average trust in their ability to read vocal tones, it's probably blind people. Just sayin'.

cm11 7mo ago

This isn't a happy counterargument or anything, but (bad as it is) this is this person's job. Or rather it is the job. Their employer has customer service in order for it to buffer—in a cost efficient way—the one or many layers of people above this person from their (profitable) bad policies. It's a punching bag. And it's that because bad policy + punching bag is more profitable than good policy. It might even be the business/market. If the frustrating call leads to 50% of callers giving up (or not calling at all) and just paying something they might not owe, that's a nice net ROI. You might build a business around that, one that wouldn’t have the margins otherwise. You get the callers caving because they feel bad yelling at the unfortunate employees, meanwhile it's in the company's formal protocol to only correct it (or escalate the ticket to someone who could) after the customer has yelled long enough. There are bad customers for sure, but we also cheat good customers out of what they’re owed until they’re “bad.” The customer can yell or eat the cost. I think I can both feel bad for the employee and not place much blame on the customer given customer service as a quasi profit center.