Why Does Michael Lewis Say the IRS Could Not Fix a Water Fountain?

Michael Lewis says the water fountain was more like the Internal Revenue Service's technology, and a lot of what remained of the US government, than like the apps an employee had created. Forces beyond the control of any one person governed the fountain. It existed inside a web of rules and beneath layers of authority, and it required a certain kind of person to make sure it worked.

A plumbing-looking man heard about the fountain on the fifth floor and said the working one was on the seventh floor. The employee said he worked on the fifth floor. As the elevator doors closed, the man shouted that a fountain was also on the fifteenth floor. Every day, the employee checked the fountain and pressed anyone even remotely connected to the issue. He pinged his manager and the CIO of the IRS. No one followed up, even though he always follows up with people who get in touch with him and always asks what he has to do to fix the water fountain. At the facilities management office, a different man said they had fixed a filter, but it was a fountain on another floor.

The employee said some activity actually happened, and he described the result as how a person thought when actually trying to fix a thing instead of profiting from its brokenness.