5 Things I've Learnt About Working In A Government Department:

1. There are as many rules about process and procedure as there are exceptions.

2. When in doubt, make paperwork and spread it around.

3. The people who work in the dullest jobs have the loudest personalities.

4. The hardware in the staff kitchen is newer than the hardware on your desk.

5. Nobody is where their database entry says they are, every department is known by a half dozen other names that sound just like some completely unrelated department, and the database you've spent the past week learning to use is going to be superseded next week anyway.