In the your-tax-dollars-at-work department . . . someone from our office went to pick up a file from a municipal agency that we've done work for for years. The file wasn't where it was supposed to be, so they went up to the office of the person from whom the assignment came. Naturally, that individual was not in their office, but the file was -- with a page on top of it stating that it was to be picked up by us.

However, since it was NOT in the usual pick-up location, a team of six civil servants stood around debating for nearly an hour whether or not it was OK for our people to remove the file; the person who assigned us the case eventually returned and said "Oh, of course you can take it -- it's meant for you." Hilariously typical.