HPD & MC spend so much time posturing and prevaricating it's little wonder the number of errors, blunders, inaccuracies, miscalculations, oversights, and transgressions that can be pinned firmly to their convulated hierarchy of managers, leaders, supervisors and High Programmers. From mindless sabotage of their own initiatives that led to the PopRox_Massacre to the careless indifference in respect of misrouted calls that allowed the Homologous_Psychic_Dissidents_&_Mutant_Citizens free access to high security areas under the pretence of being a HPD & MC workcrew, there is little to say except echo support for the immediate dissolution of the Service Group, as voiced by Jan-U in commenting upon the Thirty-one_Official_Flavors.
The Sector Decontamination Request 429-79 is simply another Slender Quasi-Ferrous Fastening Pin in the Confession Booth for HPD & MC and their indifference to standardised and efficient protocols employed across the other Service Groups in Alpha Complex. The original request from a Citizen in BNG Sector1, recently accessed from the HPD & MC Priority Infrared Preservation Expedition line of maintenance requests2, was:
#625D/561 - 7216271.34 - BNG/26536 - AAAACA/12 Leaking chilled cleansing fluid faucet in Infrared Communal Cleansing Pool 36 - AAAACA/12 - reported by Citizen Help-LSS
The request was transmitted, but was mistakenly re-routed through several departments, and ultimately deposited with a Clerk in the Office of Negative Pressure Particulate Matter Removal. The clerk assessed the requested, a process that took two monthcycles, before logging inappropriate use of a request form, incorrect form for department requested, request for fluid maintenance operative from a particulate maintenance department, and eighteen other minor violations. The content of the request was transferred to stationery from the clerk's office and was forwarded on for re-assignment, with the following content:
#52R/470 - 7216271.34 - BNG*LGS/BB - AAAT - ALA/12 Aperture integrity failure in respect of cooled non-particulate transfer aperture in Interred Communing Laving Combine 36 - AAAACA/12 - reported by Citizen Helpl-SSS
The request reached the Office of Designation On Hold, where communications without clear ownership are apparently assessed for redirection and delivered within internally assigned agreed margins of finality and completion. When the Office was moved to a bigger building 4.6 years later, the backlog of work was assigned across multiple departments - and this request was dropped off with the Department for Prehension of Osteichthyes-based Odours. The workloads across HPD & MC's overburdened bureaucracy meant that a fresh inductee was assigned to looking through the request - and rather than assessing the request overall, simply based his appraisal on the area of the Office's primary concern in nasally offensive emanations. The simple judgment was that this request had absolutely nothing to do with the department, so the request was input into a centralised queue:
#5R/4279 - 7216271.34 - BNG Sector to LGS Sector xooB - 1AT - L/12 Ruptured hole releasing coolant fluid being transferred to condemned Claiming Scrubbing centre - AAAA-grade assessment. - reported by Citizen Helpl-l-SSS
When the request hit the queue, the report was assessed by a sub-subnode of the Computer and was assigned high priority due to the apparent Indigo source of the communication. As a result, it was picked up in less than 7 monthcycles and assigned to a Supervisor in the Office of Fluid Limitation Operations & Works. It was apparent that there was an issue with a major coolant release across multiple sectors and that this was of utmost importance, so a work order was raised to get the Office of Contamination & Obnoxious Abnormal Toxin Suppression to do something about it:
#429-79 - 7216271.34 - BNG Sector, TOE Sector, LGS Sector, XOR - I Sector, ATL Sector /12 Massive rupture through holes in multiple sector transfer lines of coolant fluid being transferred from condemned isotopic Reclaiming & Scrubbing centre - AAAA+ grade threat assessment. - reported by Citizen Helpl-I-SSS
When the work order arrived, several weekcycles later, the threat assessment sent alarm bells ringing, paired with the potential damage across multiple sectors. The incident clearly represented a massive potential threat to a large amount of valuable Computer property. The Sectors were immediately quarantined, where they could be found, or assigned warnings where they couldn't be immediately located - in the case of Phantom_Sectors like XOR-I and ATL Sector. Emergency_Disaster_Response_Teams were sent out in massive numbers and LeadLike laced radiation retardant foam was released pretty much wholesale across all Sectors. The Citizens with the Clearance to be made aware of the situation were evacuated, and the remainder were contacted through vid-channel SPIn to inform them that there would be bonus Cold Fun portions for the Citizen who could keep their eyes closed for the longest time.
In the end the losses in resource resulting from the action were classified - and appear to have been locked from view to even Ultraviolet citizens (further supporting belief in the existence of a GAMMA_Clearance). A massive review of procedures was put in place, resulting in a revision of protocols and procedures to ensure that frivolous fast-tracking of requests like this would never happen again. Multiple additional levels of checking were installed to ensure that all requests were thoroughly investigated and assessed before any valuable resources were assigned.
It was precisely those enhanced procedures that bottle-necked the responses to the calamities that culminated in the Toothpaste_Disaster.
-- Costin-U-MOR-8
Refs: Best_Good_Happy_Sector_Hour, Codemonkeys, Emergency_Disaster_Response_Teams, GAMMA_Clearance, Homologous_Psychic_Dissidents_&_Mutant_Citizens, Information_Distortion, LeadLike, Phantom_Sectors, PopRox_Massacre, Thirty-one_Official_Flavors
1 BNG Sector habitation was decommissioned fourteen years ago following agreement that building a completely new habitation sector would be cheaper than repairing the signficant structural damage inflicted during the Best_Good_Happy_Sector_Hour Riots. The Sector has since been reclassified as an Infrared recreational facility. 2 The requests were original held in a sealed archive that was cracked by an IntSec agent using a codebreaker retrieved from the Codemonkeys datastore.
Commentary:
"In the end the losses in resource resulting from the action were classified - and appear to have been locked from view to even Ultraviolet citizens (further supporting belief in the existence of a GAMMA_Clearance)"
Though this time, they're not actually labelled as such. There are things that Friend Computer doesn't see fit to tell us. Though admittedly, it's unusual for it to happen with something such as this.
-- Err-U-DYT-9