Alice in Bureacracyland
Some of you fair readers out there might not know it, but in actuality, I’m a biznessman. One of the few here on the corporate-challenged South End. Admittedly it’s a small bizness. And okay, full disclosure here, I’m not real high on the Job Creator list, although, I have hired half a dozen folks over the years, not enough to bring the economy to full roar, but hey, how many have you hired? If it’s more than half a dozen, don’t write to me. You either, Donald, I don’t care if you are running for President.
As a bizness, a legal entity known to the state of Washington and the IRS as Revisionary Glassworks – okay, it’s a hippie dippie name, but how was I to know back in 1980 I would become the economic engine I am today – I am required to do most of the things Boeing or Microsoft do to operate a company. No, not outsource my work to China, I mean I have to fill out L&I forms, proof of insurance, get contractor’s licenses, pay quarterly taxes (which I always forget to do, which reminds me, damn, I forgot this last one too) and file Intent to Pay Prevailing Wages, this last I’m trying hopelessly to do online. The Big Boyz hire people to manage this stuff. I tried to talk the mizzus into doing this tedious crap but she’s a little busy working full time and doing our household finances. So I’m stuck with most of it. Good thing I’m not real busy myself working.
My handlers at the WA Arts Commission put out a little booklet they call the Handbook for Artists. It’s 60 pages of hoops us artists have to jump through before they pay us a dime for any public art projects we have won commissions to do. Little things like structural engineering stamps, conservator evaluations, proof of insurance, business license, blah blah blah for page after page, plus this brand new one: Intent to Pay Prevailing Wage. I recently got a contract, signed it, sent it in with most of the above and said Yes, I will pay prevailing wage. I got back a message Not so Fast, Charlie! You got to send us a form.
Nice to let us know. Next Handbook will probably add a few pages to explain where to get such a form. Turns out L&I handles that little detail. So I go online to fill out their form and pay their fee (which, call me anti-government if you have to but don’t bet heavily on it) is really the basis for this, I think. Well, it takes money to make money, me and Donald always say, so I hunkered down over my computer and started to fill out the damn form.
I’m going to spare you the ugly descriptions of this torture. You don’t need to visualize waterboarding or online form fill-outs. I even apologize for inflicting this minimum amount on you. But after an hour I had to stop. When I went back later, the site was gone. Or so my computer told me. I tried alternative places. Same message. Half an hour later I got in. Same site, so you tell me. Alice in Wonderland would have a field day in bureaucratic mazes. I spent two more hours filling out a one page form only to get stalled trying to print it. Fast forward an hour. I’m on a different form, online alternative version I guess of the other one, and it asks, about question #3 who my funding agency is so I put down the WA Arts Commission. It says it has no record of this. How could it? I’m putting it down now. But … you can’t go to question #4 if you can’t get #3 done. And I can’t get paid if I can’t get to question # 378,934 and hit Send.
Okay. Catch 22. Somewhere in a perfect world where the sun shines all day long and the moon is full every night, we could forego this red tape. No, wait. That place exists!! I have had projects in Florida and Alaska and Oregon and Utah. They don’t give me a 60 page Handout. They don’t require 35 hoops to jump through. They don’t need an Intent to Pay Prevailing Wages, as if I would know what the guy I hire should be paid to hold a panel in place while I screw the moldings on, some union scale for Panel Holder On-ers. And okay, yeah, I’m frustrated, I’m more than a little pissed off, I’m 66 years old and still trying not to be forced into involuntary retirement. But I tell ya, I’m starting to see what the small business folks are screaming about. I feel their pain. I definitely do. And no, I’m still not gonna vote for Donald. Pain is one thing, torture is another.
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