The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Five Minute Insta-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...

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Five Minute Insta-Rant

Five Minute Insta-Rant..... Go!

Would all the stupid people in the City of Pittsburgh please stop calling me! I mean serriously, I know my name is available out there, and I know that I'm on the web page somewhere, and I know that there are several people who think that I do everything at THE BUREAUCRACY, but people PLEASE stop calling me. No, I don't do everything and I don't have time to sort through your piddly assed problems. If you had just taken the time think logically for 5 minutes to actually figure out who deals with these problems, instead of calling me up, I'd be much happier. Please, PLEASE take about 5 more minutes, look in the friggin' yellow pages (they still have those,right?) and figure out, for yourself who is supposed to take care of your problem.

It doesn't help you or me if you complain to me for 15 minutes about how so-and-so is doing such-and-such to something or other if I can't help you, but can merely pass you off to the real person in charge. You've wasted a quarter hour of both our lives.

If you are calling me, without a clue as to what I really do, you are so far off.

Please don't call me. I'm overworked. And I can't help you. Call my boss.

Five Minute Insta-Rant... END!

---
And yes, I'm both angry and drunk tonight.

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat

Pages

About Me

The Rules of Bureaucracy

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Five Minute Insta-Rant

No comments:

Recorded in the Office of the Prothonotary

Public Comment Period

Other Blogs

Other Public Servants

Adjourned sine die

The Filing Cabinet