Bureaucracy vs. Button Clicks: Surviving the Red Tape of a “Huge” Cloud Migration
There’s nothing quite like the thrill of a massive cloud migration—unless, of course, you count the thrill of filling out endless forms to justify every mouse click. For one small, scrappy team inside a Fortune 100 giant, moving their web service to AWS should have been a quick “hit Deploy and grab a coffee” affair. Instead, it became a master class in corporate red tape, complete with irate project managers, existential paperwork, and the kind of process theater that would make Kafka blush.
Let’s take a stroll through a tale where the real migration wasn’t to the cloud, but to an alternate universe powered entirely by bureaucracy.
Welcome to the Paperwork Jungle
Our story begins in the early, wild-west days of “the cloud.” AWS was fresh, shiny, and mysterious. Our protagonist—let’s call them Techie—worked in a rogue division that operated like a startup, despite being nestled deep within a corporate behemoth. Their team was tiny, their importance negligible (by their own admission), and their processes refreshingly simple: Need to deploy? Hit “Deploy.” Something breaks? Fix it and, yes, hit “Deploy” again.
But when the corporate mothership decreed that all software must ascend to AWS, the bureaucracy landed hard. Techie’s team, possibly chosen first because no one would notice if their app imploded, found themselves under an avalanche of managers, project managers, and architects. Suddenly, moving code was less about Git and EC2, and more about crossing T’s and filling in every single box—whether or not it made sense.
The Cutover Gauntlet
Setting a cutover date should have been the home stretch. Instead, it triggered a paperwork apocalypse. The PM (Project Manager, but in this case, Perturbed Monarch) demanded documentation for every step of the deployment. Deployment process? “Uh…hit Deploy.” Rollback process? “We don’t really do that. We just fix and redeploy.” Business contact? “Nobody. It’s just us.” Change management system? “That’s adorable.”
Each honest answer only fueled the PM’s growing irritation. Corporate forms don’t like empty spaces, and they certainly don’t like self-approvals. “You can’t approve your own deployment!” the PM protested, as if Techie had just confessed to hacking the mainframe with a rubber duck.
So, Techie improvised. One coworker became the deployment runner. Another, now dubbed “architect” (despite the job title saying otherwise), got roped in. The PM, out of people to question, relented with the world-weary sigh of someone who’s just realized they’re arguing about imaginary processes.
The Big Moment (Sort Of)
At last, the paperwork gods were appeased. The PM, middle managers, and the entire “cast” gathered on a call for the grand cutover. Formalities ensued:
- “{boss}, do we have your approval as business owner?” Sure.
- “{Techie}, do we have your approval as technical owner?” Sure.
- “{Coworker}, go ahead and start the deployment.”
Ninety excruciatingly awkward seconds passed. The deployment completed, flawlessly and uneventfully. No fireworks. No disaster. Just a lot of people on mute, probably wondering if they could sneak out for coffee.
Lessons from the Land of Red Tape
What should have been a straightforward migration turned into a bureaucratic odyssey. The team spent more time inventing answers for paperwork than actually moving their service. When asked to document processes they’d never needed, they had to conjure them out of thin air—just to keep the PM happy.
So, what’s the real takeaway here?
- Bureaucracy Grows to Fill the Available Space – Even if your team is four people and a dog, corporate machinery will find ways to wrap you in process.
- Sometimes, You Have to Play the Game – When faced with forms that demand answers, sometimes you just assign hats and titles until the boxes are filled.
- Tech Isn’t Always the Hard Part – Moving to the cloud? Easy. Moving through the corporate gauntlet? That’s the real challenge.
Share Your Own Red Tape Horror Stories!
Have you ever had to document a non-existent process just to appease the paperwork police? Or been forced to jump through hoops for something that takes less time than the approval call? Drop your own tales of corporate bureaucracy in the comments—because sometimes, the best way to survive the red tape is to laugh about it together.
Red tape: slowing down your cloud migration, one unnecessary signature at a time.
Original Reddit Post: Red tape: Software cutover edition