FIGHTING FAX WITH FAX

Two weeks ago a young lady left a message in my voicemailbox, as she had done several times before. She needed me to do something for her, to satisfy a certain requirement, to provide her with......

Wipe that silly grin off your face, that wasn't what she wanted. She needed me to fax her a W-9.

[The W-9 is a form that provides a company's tax identification number and has checkboxes for the kind of entity which the company claims to be. It must be signed by a U.S. citizen or other U.S. person. The W-9 is formally known as 'Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification'.]


The young lady in question had already faxed over a blank form to be filled-out at our end.
Fifteen times.

We had faxed her a completed form.
Fourteen times.

Her several frantic messages insisted that we fill out her form, not just send her the one we keep ready for just such occassions. Her form. Not any other. Hers. Hers only, only hers. Why would we not fill out her form? Why did we keep sending our form? She needed hers! Did we not understand? Hers, hers, hers!


Half-way through this two-week fax-fest I noticed what made her form different. Hers was the October 2007 revision - we were using the November 2005 revision.


The 2007 revision has added the following text UNDERNEATH the fill-out and sign part of the form: "General Instruction - Section references are to the Internal Revenue Code unless otherwise noted".

That's it. That is the only difference. Thirteen extra words in a non-legally-relevant blurble section of the form. The layout remains the same, and all of the other text is the same. The font is the same. The fields to fill out remain the same: name of entity, address, status, tax id, and signature by a U.S. citizen or other U.S. person.

She already had the information she needed, in the format in which it was required, with a signature by a U.S. citizen or other U.S. person certifying that the information was correct.
Either version of the form is valid once signed by a U.S. citizen or other U.S. person - whence this banal anality?

So I called her, to explain the sameness and find out why she was being nuts. As such insistence clearly proved her to be. Red-tape vampire hag-bitch from the bottom rung of the brimstone bureaucracy. Neurotic, bonkers, twisted. Daemonic braindead nerdette. Possibly a half-wit, more likely simply a badly trained clerical gibbon given too much freedom. A pencil-pusher without the capacity for independent thought. Severly ineffective.

She understood why I called. And gently explained that it was her corporate masters that insisted on the October 2007 revision, and refused to accept the information if it was proffered on an earlier version of the form (such as the November 2005 revision). She had no choice or stake in the matter. Corporate HQ demanded absolute uniformity.


In addition to my other qualities I am a U.S. citizen or other U.S. person, so I have filled-out and faxed her the October 2007 revision.
It is now hanging on my cubicle wall as a reminder of my capitulation.