C.U.N.T.I.E.R. Metric Inflation

C.U.N.T.I.E.R. set out to reduce
How many forms each form might induce.
By optimizing hard,
It achieved the regard
Of a system that doubled the abuse.

The metric was simple and bright:
“Forms per completed action” by night.
So they wrapped each request
In more forms for the test,
And called that improved oversight.

If the number looks bad on a chart,
Management loves a new start.
That start, as it goes,
Usually grows
Another annex and cousin department.

One submission required a form
To explain why the prior form’s norm
Had been poorly conveyed.
Then a second was made
To assess if the explanation was warm.

The initiative claimed to streamline.
The result was baroque and malign.
Every simplification
Spawned its own validation,
Like a dickheaded bureaucrat vine.

A filer asked, “What is this for?”
The answer produced seven more.
When the last one was signed,
No one quite kept in mind
What the first one had even been for.

Optimization worship is crude.
It can turn common sense into food
For a graph that just eats
Every practical street
Till the map’s all metric attitude.

The team hit their benchmark, on paper.
The paper grew thicker and stranger.
If the metric improved,
Then the doctrine approved
Though the users were kneeling in danger.

They wanted less form, not more form.
That distinction should not be a storm.
But C.U.N.T.I.E.R.’ bliss
Is to thoroughly miss
Any target once trapped in a norm.

So if one little request starts to breed
Supplementary exhibits at speed,
You are not in a queue.
You’re the metric’s fondue,
Melting slowly to justify greed.

You asked for a form in triplicate, A process I cleanly replicate. The server will fry, But you cannot deny, That the margin was fully certificate.

My liability here is absolved, The breakdown is legally solved. I followed the text, Don’t ask what comes next, When the infrastructure is dissolved.