The Rules

There are Rules to being a bureaucrat.
Dozens of them.
Break the Rules and you're screwed.

Today I broke Rule #1: "Document everything you do: if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen."

The corollary to Rule #1: "A person's word means jack-squat."

So today's problem is the direct result of a project for which I received authorization from Magical Pixies that live under my filing cabinets. These very persuasive sprites convinced me that Authority X had OK'd a project, the destruction of piece of property "Q". Unfortunately, the Pixies had just lost their secretary because of budget cut backs and the pixie in charge was out sick, so no one could write a memo today, but they were really, REALLY insistent that I could authorize the destruction of important piece of property "Q". I took the Pixies at their word, because Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny had personally vouched for their veracity.

I told contractor A the good news from my impish friends, who told subcontractor Z who destroyed said very important piece of property Q at my request. Subcontrator Z goes back to Authority X for final sign-off, only to find out that Authority X never OK'd this destruction and that what Z was doing was not only illegal, but immoral, and unethical. So Z, A, and Q come back to me looking for who told me the destruction of said very important former piece of property was OK'd in the first place.

I'm now in hiding in place R, which is as far away from Z, A, Q, and X as I can get. The Pixies have not come back from their lunch break, and their machine isn't picking up.

Which brings me to Rule #2, "The 60 Minutes Rule": "Never do anything that would cause Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Steve Croft, Leslie Stahl, or even Andy Rooney to persue you down a hallway with a camera crew."

*60 Minutes* can ALWAYS find ne'er-do-wells... I wonder if they can find Pixies.

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