"Are the purples in favor of this regulatory change, then?"

"I certainly am. There's too many people for a one-size-fits-all set of rules about working hours with limited exceptions designed for swing-shift security guards to make sense."

"If you don't have any rules, though, people'll just get exploited."

"Of course, I don't want it deregulated, I want a principled way to address possible exceptions. I want to be able to tell someone with a sleep disorder, 'sure, you can pack boxes for me at night, just answer three questions for this agency and they'll let you'."

She perks up. "Does that sort of thing come up frequently -"

"Oh, all the time. Anybody with something that's bad some days and better other days, who wants full time work, it's a problem - anyone who has a lot of doctor's appointments - anyone who can't go out in the sun or tolerate commute-hour crowds -"

"And is that why you want the form to have three boxes -" Someone apparently handed her the proposed form. It indeed has three boxes. The one for swing-shift security guards by contrast has fourteen.

"Some people with this sort of issue can do more boxes than that but honestly if you could make it one box somehow I'd be in favor and I want to resist in the strongest possible terms turning it into four or five because that becomes six or seven or ten or twelve. You should assume that every single step of the most trivial size is cutting at least a few people out of the process. My sister can't work at all because she's consistently unable to do strings of tasks like that; she couldn't do a three-box form and I'm not trying to make the whole system work for her, but it's a source of genuine friction even in people who could pack boxes or sand chairs that come off a machine line, and you should price out as few people as possible in the economy of attention."

Fervent nod. "Someone has to evaluate the forms, though, and if there's not much information they can't make good decisions -"

"Sure, but the bureaucrats are selected to be the kind of person who can navigate information systems. They can look up the name and date and postmark and figure out the other boxes that usually go in these places, figure out the most recent address on file and date of birth and look up the record of the company."

"If it takes them thrice as long per form then we're paying three times the salaries -"

"Only until you get some of it automated."

"I guess electronic submission would help, there - or are you going to tell me people can't use a computer -"

"That would've been a problem five years ago but not today, I think, definitely use electronic submission."

"Is there a cost estimate-"

"I'm not sure how you'd go about doing that - Kantil, any ideas -"

"It's a function of the number of applications but it won't be very much per. With the comparable grey and orange programs there's over ninety-four percent of requests approved - say the approval rate for this program is only eighty because it's new and the requirements less widely understood - and presuming fifteen minutes to review and process an application, in a season one yellow doing this full time approves sixty-four hundred and takes home fifty thousand ni including benefits. If you really wanted to be revenue neutral you could charge eight ni per application - I don't recommend that, it's a barrier particularly to the people who can least afford more variables, you're not serving purple populations by giving them more administration."

      "Yes, yes," she says.

"And - that's sixty four hundred jobs you approved. Some of those are merely more convenient for the employer or employee, but some of them are people at work who'd be otherwise unemployable, and machinery running when it's otherwise idle. I know 'it'll pay itself back in tax revenues' is the most convenient of justifications for programs but you need very implausible starting assumptions to think you'd come out of this one behind."

Isama smiles.

"How many applications are you expecting -"

      "That I can't guess even by analogy to the grey and orange populations, doctors and security guards are both the same size every year. I do think you'll get expansion season-to-season as people retool around the possibility of more flexible employee time, but the precedent for administrative expansions is actually that hiring need not quite keep up with demand, because we were giving the yellows fifteen minutes a form and they'll get faster with practice."

"Why doesn't everybody do this?"

     "I expect lots of places have it but the forms are too complicated, or they don't enforce - or selectively enforce - their workplace laws which amounts to the same thing in practice but with less predictability and less space for discernment - or, you know, you tell your employees to clock out at eight but to have gotten so much done, knowing they'll stay later. Which compounds the hours violation with a wages one but people might not know their rights -"

Isama nods along.

Blues crowd around and listen. Blues think this really sounds quite reasonable, sure, they can hire one yellow to start out and only look at the first eight thousand applications this season and then grow from there if it seems to be working. Blues really want to add a couple more boxes to the form. Name, taxpayer ID #, regulation from which they require an exception, reason for exception, affirmation that they understand how to report workplace conditions violations...

"No no no. Three boxes. The taxpayer ID number can go instead of name and you can make the yellows look up the number to get the name, maybe, if we're assuming the employer is helping with these and will have the ID on hand. Don't make them name the regulation, nobody knows what regulations are named - you can maybe have different forms for different ones and the employers can sort out which ones they need - and you can give them the email address and phone number for reporting things but don't make them tell you they read it."

"But then what if they just look right past it -"

"Making them check a box or sign a line will not make them read it, let alone write it down in a way that works for them for later consultation. I don't care if you make me put that email address in two-foot-high-letters on the wall of every factory I own, do not put one more box on that form."

Taxpayer ID, check a box for the relevant regulation, reason for exemption?