"Please allow 8-10 weeks for your request to be completed."

I work in the IT department of a large organization here in Nebraska.  If you have ever seen the movie Office Space, you've had a glimpse into my world.  Don't get me wrong, I generally like my job and I like the people I work with, but sometimes we have to do things there that don't make a lot of sense. 

I was recently working on a lengthy project to replace an imaging system with a newer version of the same thing.  My role was to replace some aging hardware with newer equipment and implement the underlying infrastructure necessary to run the new software. One of the capabilities of both the old and new versions was the ability to send out faxes containing images processed through the system.  To do this, the system requires a fax modem attached to one of it's servers.  The architecture of the new system would not allow that, so I had to install the new fax modem on a separate piece of network equipment and use special software to make it appear that it was physically attached to the new system.

Everything was going just fine until I realized that I would need to reallocate an existing network address to the new device connected to the new fax modem.  This equipment lives in a large data center.  There are rows and rows of racks containing equipment for every imaginable purpose.  For management's benefit, we often say that our data center has a lot of FBL.  

I should stop here and explain the concept of FBL. Upper management measures the data center's level of technical sophistication and processing capability in terms of FBL. The more FBL you have, the more processing power, network capacity, and technical sophistication you have in your data center. You can never have too much FBL.  

There are several types of FBL.  We have green FBL, yellow FBL and the dreaded red FBL.  The more green FBL you have, the better.  The more red FBL you have, the more likely it is that you're going to have to sit in meetings to explain why you have any red FBL in the first place and what you're going to do about it. Once you've gotten rid of your red FBL, you'll have more meetings to come up with a plan to make sure the red FBL doesn't come back. Yellow FBL means that you're probably going to have some red FBL soon if you don't do something about it.  In case you haven't figured it out by now, FBL is the abbreviation for Flashing and Blinking Lights. Upper management measures overall data center performance by the amount of each color of FBL. Welcome to IT.

Anyway, back to the fax modem.  Our organization is large enough that we apparently need a person to keep track of all our network addresses.  There is a list somewhere that lists all the possible addresses, the device assigned to.each one, and where that device is located.  In order to get a network address, you have to submit a request form.  In my case, I just needed an existing address assigned to a different device.  My plan was to use the existing phone line and replace the existing fax modem with the new one in the same location.  I thought that would eliminate the need to fill out a telecom request form to make a change to the fax line that we were already using for the same purpose.  I was wrong.

I filled out a separate request form to get the existing network address reassigned to the new device.  The guy who manages network addresses responded to my request and said I would need to submit a removal request for all of the existing devices we are retiring and also a telecom request for the fax line.  I expected to have to fill out the removal requests, but telecom didn't have any work to do since the phone line will be used for the exact same application and remain in the same location.  There is nothing for them to do.  Thinking he must have misunderstood my plan, I sent him an email explaining it in a different way.

I explained to him that there would be nothing for telecom to do and from their perspective everything would remain the same.  He responded and said that a telecom request would still be required and this time copied my manager, my manager's boss, the head of IT, and several other people I have never heard of. I replied and said "Let me make sure I understand what you're saying.  You want me to submit a telecom request asking them to do nothing?"

He said "Yes. And please allow 8-10 weeks for your request to be completed."  

So I filled out a telecom request.  On the telecom request for the description of work to be done I put "Do nothing. There is nothing you need to do. Absolutely nothing at all.  Please don't do anything.  If possible, we need this not to be done by the end of the month."

I haven't received a response yet, but I expect to not receive one soon.