When applying for some type of government subsidy, you can expect to have to fill out lots of paperwork.

What would you do if the process took over two years and 800+ pages of documentation?

That is what the farmer in this story had to work through, but in the end, he followed the rules and got what he needed.

Let’s read all the details…

Document Hoarding Bureaucrat Gets Exactly What They Asked For

A small farm, in European Union, was applying for an EU agricultural subsidy for a storehouse.

Big enough for storing a couple of farming vehicles and odd bits of this and that, otherwise lying around the farm like orphaned rounds of cheese. Nothing fancy.

EU is notorious for the exhausting amount of paperwork needed for any kind of agricultural subsidy.

The process is usually both long and tedious. Ask any farmer, if you don’t take my word.

That’s not all…

On top of that you have the local government adding their mostly unnecessary and confusing bureaucratic sprinkles to the cake.

Because who just doesn’t love good old paperwork, yay?

Does it really exist? The building is already there and in use.

Farm Boss has been engaged with the subsidy application process since the beginning of the project, over 2 years.

Literally hundreds of emails, calls and letters have been exchanged between various instances.

Application process is like this, nothing abnormal about that.

It would be easy for them to just come take a look.

A Bureaucrat had to be convinced that a building has been built and it’s for the intended purpose.

Note: a building permit, a proof of a bank loan, the building inspector’s report and photographs of the actual building were not enough evidence.

Apparently a storehouse doesn’t stand on its concrete foundation, housing farming equipment and material, before a Bureaucrat acknowledges the matter.

An existential crisis of architectural sorts, I suppose.

Finally, after much struggle and convincing, a Bureaucrat acknowledged officially, that a storehouse has been built and it’s used for its intended purpose. Whee.

That wasn’t the malicious compliance.

Aforementioned part of the bureaucrazy is not essentially part of the malicious compliance story itself, nor was it the only one.

But before proceeding I wanted to give you, dear reader, a palpable example of a mucus oozing snail, that is a bureaucrat.

Was it really paid for? Now another Bureaucrat wants to know all the costs claimed in the subsidy application have been actually paid.

Makes sense; you don’t want to assist scammers, who forge fake invoices and payments.

Is it even worth it to go through this process?

In this project there were some 150 (give or take) financial transactions involved for material, labour, insurance, permits, etc.

Want all the invoices? You got it.

Want all the receipts? Okey dokey.

Want the bookkeeping statements? If you say so.

This last one has special significance.

Even bookkeeping statements aren’t good enough.

Bookkeeping statements contain a legally binding track of every single invoice and payment.

Bookkeepers swear on the blood of their first born baby it’s correct.

Even the tax office is happy with that – and they are not easy folk to please.

But the local government sitting on top of the EU money (which even isn’t their money)?

Nooooo, not enough for them.

They want to be super duper extra hyper sure, how every single last nut, bolt and screw was paid for.

Because maybe Farm Boss is just a scammer who likes to spend 2 years on paperwork.

Regardless the fact that the little storehouse stands proud and stout in a farm, which has existed for decades in the exact same location.

They need a 10 digit code.

Enter Smaug’s lair: Like a dragon hoarding gold and treasure to sleep upon, a Bureaucrat hoards information and documents (apparently to sleep upon, too).

Local government Bureaucrat wants to be able to track every single financial transaction.

Not by invoice number. Not by invoice date. Not by invoice sum. Not by combination of these.

No, they want the project references (not sure about the exact translation of this) combined with the actual payments.

It’s a 10 digit code attached to each part of the storehouse building project.

For example the roof has its own code under which all parts, labour, etc go.

After some hassle with the accountant agency and the bank such list was materialized.

It took only 2 weeks, so it was a quickie compared to the whole process.

Wow, that is quite a document!

It was an impressive 831 pages long PDF document.

So big because of dozens of payments, small and big, far and near, accumulated over the time span of 2 years.

Every single financial transaction.

The information needed for the subsidy application is spanned through the document, maybe some 50 odd pages.

Just deliver the 50 odd pages, easy-peasy?

Bureaucrat says no.

Yes, they really want all the pages.

Obviously one can’t omit the unrelated pages, because Bureaucrat wants to observe the document both consistent and continuous.

In other words: if the total page count is 831, that’s how many pages there has to be. End of discussion.

Happy bunny now? Ok, you’ll get the whole document.

Happy now, Bureaucrat? No.

All the information is there, how come?

Nope, we Bureaucrats want to find the information “easily”.

But we have already provided the cross-reference list with all project references and invoice numbers, how’s that?

Do they even know what easy means?

No can do, we Bureaucrats want “easy”.

How about pressing CTRL-F (search), that’s easy as 1-2-3?

Nope, we Bureaucrats want to have project references highlighted. On paper. Because that’s “easy”.

But it’d be a ton of paper, wouldn’t it surely be easier to use the electronic format? *sensible arguments overwhelmed by angry bureaucratic noises* No-no-no, absolutely no. Highlighted. On paper. “Easy”!

It’s finally time for malicious compliance.

Now you, dear reader, already know what time it is.

It’s Malicious Compliance o’clock!

Farm Boss goes through the PDF with CTRL-F and uses the marker tool to highlight the project references with pretty yellow.

One day’s work.

Then sit back and print.

Numerous coffees and one colour cartridge later there is a nice pile of A4 sheets.

Now that is a lot of paperwork to sift through.

4,2 kg (9,3 lbs) to be exact.

Neatly stacked and boxed.

Sent as a registered letter (also a bureaucratic requirement) to the Bureaucrat in need of an “easy” documentation.

Have fun browsing through papers searching for the project references, one by one, all by hand!

Finally, it was enough.

Aftermath: For Farm Boss this was just another day in the never ending bureaucratic jungle, exhausting and stressful.

If you think being a farmer is easy, you apparently don’t know any farmers.

I take my hat off for them any day of the week!

What comes to this particular Bureaucrat in question, well, they never asked for a single document more.

Sometimes these bureaucrats have to make things difficult to justify their own jobs.

Read on to see what some of the people in the comments on Reddit have to say about this story.

This seems very accurate.

Yes, great job to the farmer.

Now this would have been funny.

Apparently this type of cost code are common.

I would bet this is what happened.

Why do bureaucrats love making things so difficult?

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.