It also brings to mind the section of The Castle where the chairman is explaining to K. how it came to be that a surveyor had been summoned. A miscommunication had led to a string of events that were never questioned due to the unwillingness of the authorities to even consider that an error had been made. The official investigating always assumes that the person he's dealing with is a scoundrel.

That section of the book always brings to mind software development and bug-hunting. Kafka seems to have been immensely methodical, I think he'd have made a great dev.