Posted by
John Finnigan on Thursday, May 31, 2007 7:58:48 AM
Okay, I admit it; I’m a former recovering bureaucrat. Oh, the things my eyes have seen and the shutter my spine feels when I remember the past…. Stop, there might be children reading. I must begin this piece with the warning that the content in this article may be too upsetting for some tender members of the audience.
Bureaucracy is about rules. Bureaucrats live by them, the public demands them, politicians and the courts make them and individuals moan because of them. We are civilized by the rule of law and when the public and or the government wants something, rules become regulations and regulations get enforcers and enforcers become public servants-sort of. However, rules are rules and are most often attached to the redistribution of wealth or taxation thereof, and anybody who wants to create or redistribute wealth knows that there are volumes and volumes of rules.
Have you ever felt that a rule enforcer might be making up stuff as he goes along? Well, you just might be right. They do. If a rule enforcer doesn’t agree with the rule they are enforcing, or they have a better idea, it isn’t unusual to have a home made variation of the rule enforced. A building inspector might require a contractor to do extra work not actually required by the building code because the inspector thinks it should be done and the contractor can afford it. A public assistance distributor is lax about a provision of the regulations because they disagree with it and feel they can defend their actions. The regulations concerning a particular policy or rule are so complicated that the people enforcing it decide to put their own “interpretation” on things and blue suddenly looks orange. And my favorite, the “We don’t do that. Or, where we supposed to do that? ” response. Then there is the “ Oops, I’m sorry but we don’t abide by that rule because we don’t like it right now and chances are that you’re too weak to do anything about it. That’s my favorite.
Ah, bureauracy, don’t you just love it.
God forbid you make a public servant mad. When you enrage a public servant they slink off into the dark and plot how to extract vengeance upon you. They will wait, a long time if necessary. Like a seemingly incurable disease they hide in the dark waiting for their moment and then they burst on to the scene and save they day! However, saving the day often looks like the stomping of feet by misbehaving children.
Employment in bureaucracy has become the melting pot for attempts at socially engineering a new progressive society and making up for social ills from the past. Joining this experiment is not unlike joining a tribe. However, unlike a tribe the survival of a bureaucracy is not predicated upon the skill and success of tribal leaders and members. Bureaucracies are a tribe with their own rules and just continue on even if they’ve become irreverent.
John