Officious

It isn't necessary to imagine the world
ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities:
one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.
--Frank Zappa

Sorry, I'm a bit of a stickler for paperwork.
Where would we be if we didn't follow
the correct procedures?
---Brazil (1985)
_______________________

The Veterans Administration is often held up as a model for what a limned-down civilian health care system might look like. But Ranger would like to share this tidbit from his latest month's prescriptions from the VA.

Two of eight items -- 25% -- in the the order were incorrectly sent; these were medicines not ordered, as Ranger no longer uses them or has a backlog of them. Included with the package was a wad of paperwork: 53 pages to cover the eight drugs (see above picture.)

Much of the paperwork was redundant: For each drug was a half page of the same info: "Call your doctor about any side effects. You may report side effects to the FDA @ 1-800-FDA-1088." The side effects were both printed out on paper, and included within the product insert. There were four blank pages.

If Ranger is not the only recipient of such officiousness, that is a lot of wasted trees. Isn't there a Federal agency to whom one could report this abuse of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.)? (In triplicate, of course.)