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It has been sitting there for weeks.   Taunting me.  Laughing at me.  I know that a pile of papers is incapable of that, but the feeling still resides.  When I received this mountainous ten page assessment to fill out for Bailey, I grew annoyed.  Mostly because for twenty-three years, I have done nothing but fill out blanks on dead trees.  The same information over and over again.

It starts out, “In order to be compliant…blah….blah….blah” and I immediately want to scream.   It isn’t that I am not eager to be compliant.  Oh, I am.  Raised Catholic, the guilt will set it if I don’t follow the rules.  But, my willingness  is numbed because this is an agency that we have been with since birth.  I understand updating information, but if the information has remained the same, wouldn’t it be easier for all to simply ask if there are any changes?  If the answer is no, then all is well and no trees have to suffer a death sentence.

Each form asked for the same information.  First page – name, member name, address, phone number which repeated itself over and over again.  Part of me simply wants to fill in those blanks with “name hasn’t changed since the first page, neither has the address, phone number, or email address”, but I begrudgingly continue to rinse and repeat the process.

So, I finished the complete-waste-of-my-time paperwork and sent it on its way.    Perhaps it provides me with a lesson in patience or hand cramps.  In any event, I think I will get a stamp made with the word “same as before”  or “hasn’t changed since the last time you asked” and simply use that the next time around.