Another Funny Story

 So RBB (Berlin public TV) told the basic facts to this story here in the AM.

There's this refugee/migrant help-network called "Berlin Hilft".  It's safe to say that they have noble thoughts and probably were 99-percent legit in their eyes.

So they had this website which was the primary angle of delivery for information about their agenda and topics.

They decided to pay the folks running the web site....40k Euro (roughly 48k US dollars) a year.  Now, from my past background.....I would readily say that 40k Euro is a fair sum of money but that's what it would cost for full-time guy to update and keep things going.

Naturally.....if you are a government entity....you need to have a bill system, and track hours.  You'd identify some idiot in your group to monitor the progress or work done.  

The reason to monitor?  Well....one day, an audit will occur, and you don't want some crazy audit guy accusing you of something illegal.

Well....that day came in Berlin.

From the start-up in 2017 to summer of 2020....40k Euro a year went automatically to the group, without any paperwork to say what was done.  Embarrassing?  I would imagine it's pretty stressful for the naïve folks here.

A minimum of 120k Euro went out....for something....you just aren't sure of what.

Resolving this or getting the money back?  No....the time business expired.

An example of poor business-qualified people?  Yeah.....folks who deal with contractors typically know that some recognition of work has to occur, and it doesn't have to be a big mess of monitoring.  You keep a yearly folder and meet with the contracted crowd once in a while....keeping emails of projects/updates, and you simply keep evidence for a possible audit.

Is it possible that other than creating the original web-site....this worker never put more than three hours a week into the maintenance?  Well....yeah, that's probably a possibility.  You probably wouldn't want to mention that angle of the situation.  

At one point in my life, I worked with a guy who had such an update 'job'....which was supposed to be forty hours a week.  He admitted to me one day.....at the beginning of each day....for about an hour, he worked, and for the remaining seven hours a day....he read science fiction novels (a lot of them).  No one monitored the guy or the value of his work.  I see the same management style here in this Berlin case.