There is too much "paperwork" involved

in "volunteering", or perhaps in anything at all. There seems to be a constant demand for "information" and "feedback" and "reviews" and "evaluations" and "assessments" and "appraisals" and more. 

I get "requests" for this sort of thing all the time. The requests are really demands. I know other people are asked to provide the same sort of information about me. 

I send messages back saying, "I do not actually 'know' this person. I have never met them. I am never likely to meet them. I am simply doing something I was asked to do."  Messages will be sent back to me, "The form has to be completed for our records." There will be polite requests and apologetic requests and, sometimes, impatient or even downright rude demands.  Filling out those forms can mean the difference between funding and defunding a project or future projects. That all this really has nothing to do with me at all is beside the point. The paper work needs to be completed.

I spent most of yesterday doing paper work. People seem to have come back to work after the Christmas and New Year break and realised that "things-have-not-been-done". There is apparently vital information that has "not been supplied". There is a need for my full name, my date of birth, my preferred title, my address, my email, my phone numbers(s), my tax file number, my academic qualifications and more.  That is just a start of course. After that comes all the paperwork about the actual work, where it originated, who else is on the team, why it needs to be done, which department, where those involved are going and why and is it really necessary. 

Most of this is absolutely none of my business. I am there to provide words and symbols on request. Yes, I need to understand who is going off to do something and what it is they are going to do. I am all too well aware that they might be going somewhere dangerous but I don't need to know all the ins and outs of a project. I can assess that without all the paperwork. I am not going to help someone blow up a structure that is needed to provide people with water to stay alive. 

There was a questionnaire which ran to almost five full pages yesterday. I could not answer most of it. There was a demand to "evaluate" a project I was only peripherally involved in.  There were other requests to evaluate the performance of people who had volunteered their services. I assume they had also been asked to evaluate mine.

I was ready to throw the key board across the room when I came on a last request, "Cat, could you add a couple of words to this? We want to thank T... for what he did. I'll just write it in the card on your behalf." That was some paper work I was more than happy to do.