The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Five Minute Rant

The Rules of Bureaucracy

Rule #O: "The Rules of Bureaucracy are mutable, non-canonical, non-ordinal, and contradictory, except in the cases where they are not."
Rule #1: "Document everything you do; if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen."
Rule #2 [The Sixty 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."
Rule #3: "Nothing Simple is Ever Easy"
Rule #4: "It's about the money; follow the money."
Rule #5: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Rule #6: "Politics is the enemy of good government."
Rule #7: "The biggest detriment to public service is the public."
Rule #8: "The second biggest detriment to public service is the service."
Rule #9: "There's a reason; there's ALWAYS a reason."
Rule #10: "The Law is a harsh mistress: The rigorous and exacting application of which can benefit of society when used correctly to advance good policy and block bad, and be the bane of society when used incorrectly to advance bad policy and block good."
Rule #11: "Public service often involves waking up in the morning, opening up the newspaper, and discovering that someone, somewhere out there thinks that you're a dickhead."
Rule #12: "No one really knows what you do."
Rule #13 [Luke's Rule]: "No one ever acts like the bastard they really are."
Rule #14: "Bureaucracy endures."
Rule #15: "The longer you work in bureaucracy, the more Catch-22 resembles non-fiction."
Rule #16: "Politicians are not smarter than you."
Rule #18: "Money is not created equal."
Rule #19: "Mediocrity is normalcy."
Rule #17: "Within any bureaucratic structure, resources (e.g. people, money, knowledge, etc.) are not distributed uniformly."
Rule #20: "Don't assume a fiduciary liability without a committed resource allocation."
Rule #21: "If you do your job and obey the law, they can't reasonably fire you."
Rule #22: "The Budget will always be wrong."
Rule #23: "Always sign in blue."
Rule #24: "A Bureaucrat must be able to explain and justify his/her actions to laymen without resorting to the phrase 'because the Rules say so.'"
Rule #25: "Never voluntarily relinquish control of an original document."
Rule #26: "Sometimes you just have to say 'Screw the rules'"
Rule #27: "Change sucks."
Rule #28: "Sometimes the answer is 'No.'"
Rule #29: "It is very easy to make difficult decisions when no one has a clue what's going on."
Rule #30: "If you hang around long enough, eventually you will become an expert in something."
Rule #31: "Data, technology, and automatic processes can never completely supplant human interaction."
Rule #32: "Cover thine own ass."
Rule #33: "It's not real until it has its own acronym."
Rule #34:There is nothing more dangerous than an elected, resourceful idiot.
Rule #35: It will always take longer than expected.
Rule #36: Coming Soon...

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Five Minute Rant

To all my Customers:

We seem to have a few misunderstandings regarding my services, which I hope to rectify here. I hope you will take my directives to heart.

Don't call me before business hours start; I'm not here. I'm probably asleep or eating breakfast or commuting to the office. You know very well when we start work; calling 15 minutes early with your pissant complaint isn't going to make me work on it any harder.

Don't call me exactly when business hours start. Unless the rivers are turning to blood, darkness is covering the land, and your first born has died, your attempt to get my attention first thing is not going to work. No one has yet to call me with a emergency that warrants my attention before my first cup of coffee.

Don't call me during lunch. If you're calling me during lunch, you're hoping that I'm at lunch too and you didn't want to talk with me anyway. To foil your nefarious scheme, I take random lunch hours so you may, in fact, find me answering the phone. Be forewarned.

Don't call me five minutes after the close of business. Again, you obviously didn't want to talk to me. Please be courteous and call during lunch instead.

Don't call me two hours after the close of business. Despite what you may think, I have a life outside of THE BUREAUCRACY. I am not on call for your pissant complaints about how your project isn't being sent to the Federal Government for funding that it will ultimately be turned down for. You suck; calling after hours to complain that I'm not enabling your sucking is not going to help your cause.

Don't call me four hours after the close of business; THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE FOR UTILITY COMPANIES. I'm tired of recorded messages left at 9 PM telling me to call back between the hours of 9 AM and 4:30 PM Monday - Friday about a matter of urgency. HEY JERKWAD! WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME BETWEEN 9 AM AND 4:30 PM TO BEGIN WITH??? Bastards.

And finally, FOR THE LOVE OF THE BIG GEORGE FOREMAN STOP CALLING ME ON WEEKENDS!! I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own. I AM A FREE MAN ON WEEKENDS!

There! I've said it. I feel better.

I hope this puts to rest any confusion you may have had.

Sincerely,

"O"
The Angry, Drunk Bureaucrat

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat

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Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Five Minute Rant

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