Staplers and hole-punch
Paper, signatures, and stamps
Busy, busy work
Audit error, office closed
Oncoming apocalypse

---

“If you are viewing this instructional video, you may be having some glitches with your audit processes. Don’t panic. From time to time, any bureaucracy worth its hole-punch will need to conduct an audit.

Daily dandy-desk-documented fun
Standard sunny-systematised-stapled hijinks

However, sometimes, there is a clerical error, or worse, a process deviation. If this occurs during an ordinary, 8:45am-5:20pm workday, the standard review process can be implemented, commencing on the same day, should the error be detected before 12pm, and if later than 12pm, commencing on the next working day. The typical review timelines can then follow, ideally 3-5 business days for information gathering, followed by committee consideration dependent on the 6-weekly cycle and agenda length.

Expected. Thorough. Busy. Reassuring.
All systems nominal.
Stamping and signing rates above baseline.
Working hard, at a sensible, sustainable pace. Amiright?

Unfortunately, occasionally,
something cataclysmic happens
bottom right on the risk matrix
(likelihood=E (rare) x consequence=5 (catastrophic))

Hold onto your staplers…
A fault occurs during the audit.
An audit error in the error audit.
This results in the dreaded, circular,
Paper Ouroboros Paradox.  
At this point, the
perfectly procedured
copybook committeed
faultlessly filed
bureaucracy
will implode.

The only way of avoiding POP is
a concurrent process to audit the
audit, we call this The Meta Audit.  
The bookish amongst you may want to say
that would increase the circularity
(moving POP from likelihood=E, to D!)
Don’t worry, we run the Meta Meta
Audit to make sure that never happens.

Our favourite galactic bureaucrat avatars, the Vogons, were the first race to encounter the pure, paper-curling hell of TMA. That is why these instructions are written in poetry, of sorts. But not Vogon-authored poetry, of course, even though
the quality
and honestly
the policy
of the potential use
of these directions
or sections
or connections
for torture
Have never been directly investigated.

The KPI for TMA is known as the
Kafka-Cockroach Distance
measured in imaginary cockroach lengths (icL).

Under potential conditions of
POP, the TMA KPI KCD starts at
42 icL
     and counts down with
     every fatal meta error:
       -Information presented to audit
         committee in triplicate
         instead of quadruplicate,
41 icL
      -Audit presentation containing
        27 slides instead of 26,
        as clearly outlined,
40 icL
     -Email about colonoscopy sent
       to audit address list instead of mum,
39 icL
     And so on.

You’ll know when you reach 17 icL,
You’ll see the cockroaches.
Conveniently, this makes measurement simpler

Now you know how to calculate your Kafka-Cockroach Distance, you can audit your audits with perfect assurance and insurance.

---

This bureaucracy
Kafkaesque catastrophe
Dear Douglas Adams
Thanks for giving me words for
Processing my processes

Pour me another, to recess we go,
Tender the whiskey or beer in my hand
Feelingless furlough with barleycorn glow

Hazard as high as acuity low
Don’t tell my mother, she won’t understand
Pour me another, to recess we go

Scars are enshrouded, contusions don’t show
Hidden the lesions, pretend to be grand
Feelingless furlough with barleycorn glow

Call the Mourne Mountains, and rosin the bow
Rattle the bog and the black velvet band,
Pour me another, to recess we go

Don’t tell my mother, she won’t want to know
Sentiment-soaked more than she could withstand
Pour me another, to recess we go,
Feelingless furlough with barleycorn glow

I grew up by the beach
Air salt and sunscreen
Houses squat on dunes
Calendar in scratchy sand
All yellows and brindle

Winter scored in cactus ketch-groans
Summer seagull soundtrack
Snake sunbakes
Kikuyu crunches

Now home is hillside
Rosemary jasmine breeze
Every pane a picture
Year parades in colour
All purples and greens

Spring exits in lily lavender
Soft sepia summer
Auburn autumn
Jade July

And in unison agave flower
Invisible itinerary
Monocarpic masts
Noble nativity

Curtains to overture
In purples and greens

That old clock is ticking away,
the days bleed on one into another,
mostly all the same, nothing much
new to report here. I do what I can,
what my aged body will allow.
A limited return on my investment
I guess, but still finding little joys
that sustain me, mostly given up
on big dreams and illusions, anyway
being rich and famous was never on
my wish list agenda, all in all it's been
a very good run, with strong family
love given and received, our linage
prospers and continues, that is after
all the only real reason any of us, man
bird or beast were put on this earth.

To believe otherwise is but a
human delusion that in the end
matters not in the least.

Here’s to scrumptious nights.
cats and boots and cats and boots
We went clubbing last night, to recalibrate
ourselves on the dance floor, where magic happens.
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots
To focus on sensory experiences, the beat,
and share in the fun and tangible sense of freedom.
cats and boots and cats and boots
Feel the wave, show your energy, be the wave
cats and boots and cats and boots
be disheveled, swing your hair like a weapon
abandon, silly, self-protecting vanities
cats and boots and cats and boots
flashing lights on dancing figures
make it all seem slo-mo and extreme.
cats and boots and cats and boots
It’s been too long since we’ve done it like this.
Work-worn, I’d lost my lucidity and stumbled badly on a quiz.
Lisa pushed my books onto the floor, declaring, “Get UP, we’re grabbing some bliss.”
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots
failure has a reality, a gravity and pull all the more shocking in relief.
I’d started out the evening gloomy and ashamed - a figure of regret -
but I’m better now, buoyed and recharged and soon I’ll have a plan - hopefully.
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots
There was a guy there, on the dance floor, who looked like a young Leonardo DiCaprio.
We made eye contact, nodding and smiling at each other in motion.
We gyrated, together, sort of, for a second, in our separate orbits - no conversation
I just watched him for a moment or two, sexualizing him like eye candy.
Just seeing him was sensual fun and I wondered what he smelled like.
He had a gritty, sweaty, idealized beauty, like a dancing ‘David’
that no Michelangelo could ever capture in stiff granite sculpture.
The music ended - momentarily - we knew it would start up again
and we were there for it - til 1 or 2 am anyway - then it recranked.
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and..
Lisa grabbed my hand, jerking me onto the dance floor almost
before I could set down my drink. Eeek! “Slow Down!” I yelled,
but my complaint was lost in the din and my involuntary laugh.
cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and..
.
.
Songs for this:
Dance To This (feat. Ariana Grande) by Troye Sivan
Good Time Girl (feat. Charlie Barker) by Sofi Tukker

i laugh without listening
and cancel all my plans

in black and white
dressing every windshield in dew

i dream of you in bars
in bars
i wake up wallowing
hollow
in all our distances and headaches

every day a ****** hangover
my dry eyes are rooftiles
in wait
for the acid come pouring
out the cracked ceramic sky

umbrellaless

i cancel plans 'cause of my veins'
caramel sludge cravings ever
clear embers and
candy climbing tumbles

i crumple through the openings
of every suburban sliding glass door
to sear the acoustics of some stranger's
morning cigarettes

make clouds
and disappear vapor-burned valleys

i cancel plans 'cause the moon
has been full for three months
and the atmosphere's been seizing grandly
in time to my throat's theatrics

in time to the tics of my lighter's
flickers and clicking calls

that won't stop
'cause i don't leave my bed