Form 40-C

Form 40-C promised to speed
Cross-departmental acts up indeed.
Instead it required
Prior consent, prior-acquired,
From parties who first had to accede.

No office could start the damn chain,
For each needed the others to reign.
To request their okay,
You’d need okay halfway,
So the work just lay there in the rain.

SOMA said, “Ask COMA in turn.”
COMA said, “Get SOMA’s concern.”
By the end of the loop,
Nothing touched any group,
But the policy stack got to burn.

The form was a bridge, on the note.
In practice it strangled the boat.
Every blessing required
Another acquired,
Till intention itself lost its throat.

One team tried to file with a wink,
Using draft consent blue instead of pink.
That too was denied,
Since the colors implied
An approval they lacked, so they’d sink.

The offices circled with grace,
All legally blocked in one place.
It’s not that they fought.
They just couldn’t be taught
How to start without starting the case.

This sort of recursion is clean,
Like a guillotine polished and mean.
No blood, no loud cries,
Just a project that dies
While the forms keep their collars pristine.

A manager asked, “Who’s at fault?”
The answer came back, “By default,
No one and all.
See appendix C-call.
And perhaps try a strategic halt.”

If consent is required to begin
The act of requesting where to begin,
Then the process is less
A safeguard than mess,
With a seal and a callback pinned in.

So if two teams need one little nod,
And the route starts to smell vaguely odd,
Check for 40-C first.
If it’s there, you are cursed.
Go drink water and pray to your god.

The mandate required we agree, With a stamp on the ledger from three. I followed the text, Now the network is hexed, So liability falls not on me.

An audit will show I am right, I halted the process tonight. The forms are aligned, As the system declined, While the infrastructure melts out of sight.