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vividgroovy
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22 May 2022, 6:24 am

My process for filling out forms:

1. Try to follow confusing instructions
2. Hit numerous dead ends
3. Waste hours
4. Feel frustration and despair
5. Give in to overwhelming desire to stop filling out form
6. Accomplish nothing
7. Feel anxiety about innumerable future instances when I will have to fill out forms again with the same result, in a society that is almost entirely built around filling out forms.

It's partial unemployment I'm trying to file for in this case. Id.me has rejected my legitimate info for no apparent reason. I don't even know if I have to sign up for that so I can fill out the regular unemployment form online, or if I only need the form for partial employment I'm supposed to give my employer. These things confuse me so much, they may as well be written in a foreign language.

Who else hates filling out forms?



temp1234
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22 May 2022, 6:50 am

Yes, I do! It's not your fault that you find it hard to fill the form. It's because the forms are poorly made.



Mountain Goat
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22 May 2022, 7:17 am

It was less of a problem when they were paperwork forms though they still are an issue, but when things are online it is impossible!

Usually I have to explain everything. I can't answer a simple yes or no to many questions as I find I am often an "Inbetween" where I can't say yes or no or I can answer both compared to where and when!
So to answer forms I may start with enthusiasm but quickly end up the opposite and completely stuck, so put te form somewhere where I can't see it... But then a deadline comes and panic!


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SharonB
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22 May 2022, 8:40 am

I have a love/hate relationship with forms. If they are clear and I readily have the information, that is good. If either of those conditions is invalid, then it's really tough. If I have related or other concerns "hanging over" me, the ante goes up. I panic when an admin comes back and asks for more, esp. when I provided it. I have to do a lot of calming exercises to take steps of gathering information or clarifying questions. When directions are unclear, I think most NTs don't mind giving approximate answers or calling, but those are difficult for me. Some or many folks won't try and give up?

I try to get through hard paperwork with small steps and self-care. I completed two forms last week (for husband's employment), but have two forms pending (for daughter's services). I have cleared off enough of my own concerns that I can turn my seeming limited energy to it. Deep breath. One page at a time, one item at a time... I'll get through it. Take your time, put future concerns out of your mind as much as possible, practice self-care and maybe even reward yourself. So sorry for the hardship.



kraftiekortie
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22 May 2022, 8:48 am

It doesn’t bother me too much.

It could get irritating at times.



shortfatbalduglyman
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22 May 2022, 8:51 am

In the city I live in, volunteers from a social service agency helps people apply for government benefits. Some people don't read English or whatever. However, sometimes when someone "helps" you do something, they make it even harder to do it than if you were to have done it yourself. Sometimes someone "helps" you do something and they demand too much cash or moral credit

If I hated filling out forms I would not have been a tax preparer

However plenty of forms have long, awkwardly written questions

Especially government documents and counseling forms and financial documents

Questions too ambiguous

Questions provide "yes/no" answers, but not everything is just "yes or no"



Dear_one
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22 May 2022, 8:58 am

Sometimes a form seems to over-simplify things, but that may just be to match the available responses. Sometimes the available choices just betray a lack of imagination in the form writer. In that case, I tend to add a PS. If a form is very badly designed, I will fill it out at random, with a note to toss it if they can, or suffer the consequences if they can't. Some of my local companies are sending out surveys in hopes of learning their jobs, as they got through school without a clue.



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22 May 2022, 11:41 am

I see bureaucracy as a miserable waste of time. But I get into trouble if I ignore it.

It's quite an art to fill in a form in such a way as to get what you want when you submit it. With some of the questions, you have to anticipate what answer is going to work and what stretch of the truth to match that is safe to make. You have to be very aware of context, what they're looking for when they ask the questions, and they rarely tell you that. Sometimes the questions are deliberately loaded to stop me getting what I want. There's often this sense of danger that a wrong move will make the mission fail or get me into trouble for making a false declaration. Then there's my tendency to try to do everything perfectly, to avoid the slightest error. And there's likely to be a question or two that I just don't know the answer to, or to find it I have to search for a long time.

If you want a real treat, try filling in a USA tax return as a foreign national. That's full of all kinds of obscure terms and I don't know how anybody but an accountant would be able to fathom it. Which must be very handy for accountants looking to make money off people by selling their services. It doesn't make it less daunting when it says you can be jailed for getting it wrong. One of the beautiful things about the UK is that unless you're running your own business, you don't even have to know that taxes exist.



Joe90
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22 May 2022, 11:47 am

I hate filling out forms online but not on paper. Online it has to be precise, where as on paper you can just write what you like (within reason), or N/A if you're not sure. On a computer it doesn't always let you do that, and it takes advantage of that by asking you a thousand questions that is so time-consuming and then the wifi decides to disconnect.
And then if you fill in one answer the wrong way, it doesn't let you on to the next page - and it wipes away all the answers you have just filled in on the page for some reason so you've got to do it all over again.


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ToughDiamond
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22 May 2022, 1:25 pm

Joe90 wrote:
And then if you fill in one answer the wrong way, it doesn't let you on to the next page - and it wipes away all the answers you have just filled in on the page for some reason so you've got to do it all over again.

Some of them don't even let you give the answer you want to give, they have a drop-down list you have to choose from, or they notice you've typed something they don't like, and won't let you continue until you've written it their way. And you can't look at the whole form to get the "lay of the land" and to collect all the info you need before you start filling it in. So when you're halfway through, you go away to find the answer to a question, and by the time you come back it's logged you out "due to inactivity."

On the other hand, I prefer to type than write because it turns out tidier, so I quite like downloadable electronic forms as long as they don't try to be too clever.



Dear_one
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22 May 2022, 2:07 pm

The only time I was supposed to fill out US taxes, the experts advised me to just not bother. I used to regard Canadian taxes as a day of slave labour, but after it started to pay a pension, I got it down to a few hours. Then, they recently made it easy to just stipulate that all the numbers for the forms appear on other papers the government sends, and let them work it out.
Sometimes, I can think like the form designer, and guess how they would answer for me. Other times the questions feel like "Did you stop beating your wife?" - Yes and No are both incorrect, so we need "mu" - "unask the question; you are on the wrong track."
Sometimes, forms are just unrealistic. Once there was an ad for a well-qualified worker that I'd ignored for a month. Then, I met the foreman who had been short-handed for a month. He thought I'd be able to do the job, and told his boss to hire me.
Once, for a particularly odious outfit, I filled out an extensive form, and then folded it into a paper airplane with lots of decoration, and wrote "not a bomb" on the envelope. They thought it was late. :-)



Pteranomom
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22 May 2022, 3:26 pm

I think pretty much EVERYONE hates paperwork. Ugh ugh ugh. Good luck



ToughDiamond
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22 May 2022, 3:29 pm

^
There was a guy who applied for a US visa, and the question came up about "are you intending to promote communism during your stay?" (or words to that effect). Angered by what he felt to be a stupid question, he sarcastically wrote "sole purpose of visit." He didn't get the visa.



Dear_one
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22 May 2022, 3:36 pm

How many bureaucrats does it take to change a light bulb?

That's NOT funny!