How to make things slower

[Mobuck]

Something I noticed in the NFA application.
If I send TWO applications at the same time, they may go to different desk wieners who then go through all the background checks separately wasting enough time to have processed someone else's application.
The agency I work for couples multiple interviews to ensure both/all are handled by the same field person preventing this stupidity.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Yes, I sent in two applications at the same time. One returned because they didn’t like the formatting of the address. One processed. So I waited 12 months for one stamp and 13 months for the other. Not that waiting 12 months to get a stamp processed was any great sign of efficiency either...but I understand how it goes.

If you are a bureaucratic agency, it takes 2-5 years to get any kind of increase in your budget. If your work starts exponentially growing, you are hosed because there is nobody to do the work and won’t be for awhile. Still, you’d think basic measures like the one you suggested would at least be attempted in the name of efficiency and consistency.

 

[dogtown tom]

About three weeks ago I received six letters from ATF NFA Branch.
All six Form 4's were to the same transferee, signed by the same examiner on the same day.
Instead of using one envelope, they mailed each one separately.

 

[Mobuck]

"All six Form 4's were to the same transferee, signed by the same examiner on the same day.
Instead of using one envelope, they mailed each one separately."

So, what are the chances the "examiner" spent all day running the same name through the process 6 times?

 

[Chainsaw.]

"All six Form 4's were to the same transferee, signed by the same examiner on the same day.
Instead of using one envelope, they mailed each one separately."

So, what are the chances the "examiner" spent all day running the same name through the process 6 times?

Right? Good lord. Its like they make it so rhese folks CAN'T be efficient. Same crap my Wife delt with when she was in federal service. It hurts the brain.

 

[44 AMP]

there is the view from the outside looking in, and the view from the inside looking out.

What looks like inefficiency might be following approved procedure.

You see 2 or 4 different forms to/from the same person processed separately, and think its stupidly wasteful. And, maybe, it is.

But really, is it?? each separate application even from the same person is for a different item, isn't it?? 4 different serial number guns means 4 different forms, right??

Well, if its the procedure that each one is its own "work package", then they can't be lumped together just because its the same person applying.

Do remember one of the major unwritten rules of any organization, "it doesn't have to make sense, its procedure!"

 

[dogtown tom]

True, each application is a separate action, but it is not unusual to receive two or more approved Form 4's in the same envelope.

 

[Mobuck]

"4 different serial number guns means 4 different forms, right??"

IF the NFA applications a for "guns".
What about the applications for 2,3, or 4 identical Form 1 suppressors to the same individual?
I'm not talking about putting all the numbered items on a single approval form, I'm saying multiple investigations of the same individual for multiple items in the system would be a horrendous waste of time.