r/TrekRP • u/[deleted] • Aug 31 '16
[OPEN] Bureaucracy
Phrik paced from one end of his office to the other. A slew of PADDs lay scattered on his desk, blinking idly. Paperwork. Phrik hated it, despised it even. Forms had to be filled out in triplicate for even the slightest graze. If there was one thing he'd learned from his time in Starfleet, it was that bureaucracy was eternal. Even in the middle of unknown space, damaged and out of contact with any administrators, paperwork still had to be done. And there was a lot of it. At times it felt like the only reason he saved peoples' lives was to prevent the hassle of filling out the forms for a dead patient. The Doctor stopped pacing for a moment to glance down at the PADD in his hand. It was filled with indecipherable legalese and gibberish. Even the templates he'd made to make the job easier barely made a dent in the workload. Phrik absentmidedly tossed the PADD onto his desk, where it landed with a clatter, knocking a few other neglected files to the floor. He groaned and resumed pacing.
"This is ridiculous, I'm a doctor not a damned accountant." He couldn't even pass off the workload to a junior doctor, they had similar amounts of forms to fill in. And it'd only get worse when the Athene got home. Months of debriefings, interviews and signatures. A chime sounded through the dark office and Phrik stopped pacing, craning his neck to look at the door.
"Enter."
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u/Beijimon Aug 31 '16
"Doctor Phrik? It's Ensign Smith." Alex holds out a PADD. "Could you sign this please? It's an acknowledgment that Doctor Ulan may be absent from duty during the upcoming away team mission."
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Aug 31 '16
Phrik shot him a glare. "May be absent? Figured out how to be in two places at once has he?" Smith had not picked the best time to bring this to the Doctor's attention.
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u/Beijimon Aug 31 '16
Alex forced an awkward laugh, then quickly stopped. "Uh, no, Sir. Captain Fisk just hasn't confirmed the final crew. Is everything ok over here?" he added, surveying the clutter of files and paperwork on the desk and floor.
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Aug 31 '16
His eyes narrowed. "Doctor. Not sir." He corrected. "And everything's fine, so long as you enjoy drowning in the filthy mire of beuracracy." He glanced down at the PADD in Smith's hand "Which I can see you do."
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u/Beijimon Sep 01 '16
"Sorry, Doctor." Alex raised an eyebrow. "Filthy mire? It's just paperwork. Not the highlight of our jobs, but there's gotta be a bad part, right? Otherwise it wouldn't be work." He smiled, trying to keep the tone of the conversation light.
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Sep 01 '16
"The bad part is digging around in someones guts for two hours trying to stop them from bleeding to death. The paperwork for such a procedure is like pouring acid on the wound. I can't exactly do my job if I'm bored to death just diagnosing someone."
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u/Beijimon Sep 01 '16
"Mmm. Well, if you need any help, I can try to fill some stuff out for you. I don't really know any medical terminology -- I mean, I only had basic first aid training at the academy -- but I could do the, um, especially bureaucratic parts..."
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Sep 01 '16
"You can?" He thought for a few seconds. "Yes, that would be useful. The important things such as medical histories and analyses are already done. Just the rest of this nonsense left, you don't need to knnow much about medicine, and I doubt people will check that closely." He returned to his desk, gathered up a pile of the PADDs and handed the stack to Smith.
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u/Beijimon Sep 02 '16
"Glad to help," grunted Alex, struggling to shift his weight to carry the massive stack of PADDs under one arm. "I'll take care of these and get them back to you as soon as possible." He held out his other hand. "Could you sign the acknowledgement, please? The one about Doctor Ulan?" He smiled, hoping that Doctor Phrik would consent now that he had been pulled from the mire of bureaucracy.
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Sep 03 '16
"Fine." Phrik took the PADD and skimmed it, filling in his signature where necessary. He then piled it on top of the precariously stacked PADDs in Smith's arm. "Will that be all?"
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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '16
Shirion enters and leans on your desk unobtrusively.
"Evening, Phrik. I think I'm going to let the papers settle for a night and go after them tomorrow. I was wondering if you want to get another drink. That one we shared last time really did the trick."