Metric Inflation Aphorisms

Average forms per completed action reinterpreted as forms per form. Silence entered the record with full procedural honors.

Optimization fatigue: improving the process by making it impossible to perform. Administrative clarity arrived after usefulness had departed.

Restoring all charts to their prior comforting flatness without altering the actual number of forms involved. Nothing was resolved. The record now looks official.

Optimization requires documentation. Documenting optimization requires forms. The system achieved perpetual bureaucratic motion.

To reduce paperwork, filers were required to submit paperwork explaining why they wanted to reduce paperwork.

Dashboards reported a surge in efficiency. The filers reported a surge in despair. The dashboards were trusted.

To fix the metric, the optimization paperwork was excluded from the metric. Reality was adjusted to fit the chart.