Further Observations from E-Rate training.

During a break Tuesday, large bins of canned drinks on ice were available in an open area of the conference center. What were not available at all however were garbage cans. No, instead of a few tastefully designed and discreetly located trash receptacles, the Atlanta Airport Hilton evidently thought it would project a better image to have a man in a tuxedo personally relocate the mounds of empty cans, used glasses, and dirty napkins that had collected on the tables to a large tray which he then carried away, presumably to the bowels of the hotel where they have facilities for dealing with that sort of thing. It was absolutely ridiculous.

So, to reiterate, the Hilton management doesn’t see anything odd about making their employees dress better than the hotel’s guests and then have them publicly handle garbage without gloves. You know, that actually goes a long way toward explaining why Paris turned out the way she did.

As for the actual training…

I speak some German, a tiny bit of Japanese, I’m learning Tech, and I’m fluent in several dialects of Geek (no I didn’t leave out an R), but I am not at all conversant in Bureaucrat so I barely understood a third of what was said during the presentations, at least not the parts for which I was able to stay awake. I did discover during the Q&A portions that I’m not the only one who thinks PIA minions are infernal. A healthy percentage of the questions were along the line of “Even though you just finished saying that X was all we needed to document, my PIA contact keeps telling me I also have to provide additional documentation, wash his car, and swear fealty to the dark lord of Program Integrity.” The USAC trainers, feigning shock that professional bureaucrats would be obstructionist, go on to respond “I’ll be happy to check into it for you. In order to find your records I just need you to give me your Funding Request Number, Billed Entity Number, Service Provider Identification Number, all the stuff PIA asked for, a pound of flesh, and your immortal soul.”

Seriously, the training mostly consisted of people reciting the incomprehensible documentation that’s already on USAC’s website. They completely missed the point that anybody is capable of reading that stuff; we just can’t make any sense of it. They made zero effort to explain why you’re required to enter the same number in nine different fields on the same form or which forms have to be filled out when sacrificing an annoying neighbor to PIA. They did hand out a chart which allegedly shows the correct filing process, but it may as well have been a flow chart of Deep Blue’s process for determining chess moves or a circuit diagram for the chip in a vending machine that makes it refuse to take quarters.

The vast majority of people at the training seemed to be there to find answers to specific questions only to be told “I’m reluctant to give a general answer to that without knowing the details. If you’ll come find me after this session and provide the specifics I’ll try to help you or you can contact USAC directly.” Well THAT’s helpful to other people having a similar problem. Why exactly are we here again?