What is the definition of futility?

After a very easy Tuesday I started on what was to become a very tedious Wednesday. Initially I thought that I was going to have another quiet day but things changed after a call with a couple of pen pushers ...

... I now have to spend the remainder of my week extracting data from a series of spreadsheets, reformat it and and then paste it in to another spreadsheet. A colleague and I were repeatedly advised that this was a mandated process and there was a considerable amount of name dropping* when the discussion reached the subject of completion dates blah, blah, blah, blah.

It will not take a rocket scientist/brain surgeon/chimp scratching it's arse to realise that this electronic equivalent of form filling is not my favourite job as it's purpose is not clearly defined and it's value is easily questioned...

... let me give you an analogy in an attempt to explain the non relevance of this stupid bloody task...

... Imagine an Explorer stood on the coast of a newly discovered land. He arrived there by the usual route; heard a fascinating story from a drunk in a pub, researched the roots of this tale, combined this with a desire to see native ladies, who are renowned for having bare bosoms,  and decided to seek funding for a voyage of exploration.

So now we find him stood on a white sand beach with a huge pile of boxes wondering a) where the matches are and, more importantly, b) where the native ladies are...

... we now leap many months forward in time. Our Explorer Chap has recruited porters, seen more bare breasts than you can shake a stick at, and has trudged hundreds of miles through almost impenetrable jungle. He has shot anything that came in to sight, has endured scorching heat and frightful diseases and, on more than one occasion, wondered whether it was actually necessary to bring a pianoforte on this journey.

All of this was in the spirit of exploration and our breast obsessed Explorer eventually returns home with a huge collection of exotic biological and ethnographic samples. He has sufficient tales to  dine out on for the rest of his days** and last but not least A MAP.

Now imagine him returning to his Patron to be confronted by a couple of lackeys that have no interest in any of these discoveries and instead ask him to re-write and re-format his original exploration grant application.

Is it me?

I suppose I should point out that this analogy is not perfect but it is close enough. The truth of the matter is that I have been asked to present a set of costs as they were on the date of a particular review. This presentation takes no account of a series of major subsequent events that mean that this is no longer relevant...

... However, it is easier to tell my Dick of a Manager that I have been doing this rather than "playing with my iMac"

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* The same names that depend on me doing my proper day job to a) justify their existence and, more importantly b) be successful at it so they actually get a salary
** although some of them will need to be cleaned up for mixed company