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Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

> Bob needs a new computer for his job. In order to obtain a new work computer he has to create a 4 paragraph business case explaining why the new computer will improve his productivity.

Is this situation in any way realistic one? Because the way companies work in my beck of woods, no one wants your 4 paragraph business case essay about computer. Like, it is funny anecdote.

But, in real world, at least in my experience, pretty much everyone preferred short for emails and messages. They would skim the long ones at best, especially in situation that can be boiled down to "Tom wants a new computer and is verbose about it".

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You give the concise version to the person who is going to authorise your request. The four paragraph version goes on record for the people that person needs to justfy the descision to, they'll likely declare “I don't see a problem here” without actually reading it which is the intention: they might be more wont to question the shorter version.

My point is, I never encountered this. Literally never. I am not particularly young and it is not even the case that I would work in startups all that much. My friends did not complained about having to write paragraphs essays for stuff like this either.

I am open to the idea that there is some bureaucratic workplace where it works like that ... but everywhere I have experience with, they preferred the short version.

> My point is, I never encountered this.

I have, though not directly but seeing it in an onsite visit to a client.

It isn't as common as people complaining or joking about it might suggest, but it certainly happens.

> Is this situation in any way realistic one?

No, it's much worse than that. In real life you talk about pages and pages of documents and power points and meetings after meetings if you happen to need a computer/server/configuration that's not in the pre-approved list. (I really wish I was exaggerating. And of course no, not all employers are like this to state the obligatory obvious.)

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