The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Happy Bastille Day!

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...

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Happy Bastille Day!

In honor of those cheese eating surrender-monkeys in Parisland, I'm presenting my itinerary for that lesser of democratic holidays in July, Bastille Day:

6:00 AM: Wake up.

6:30 AM: Breakfast; Black coffee, cigarettes, contemplation of the bleakness of existence. Argue that breakfast functions as a bourgeois substitute for real commitment in the world, even if it includes bacon.

7:30 AM: Surrender to Germans. Learn how appreciate Knackwurst, Wagner, and David Hasselhof.

9:00 AM: Complain about the increase of trans-Atlantic hyperhegemony. Laugh at ridiculousness of American President. Pout. [Repeat as necessary.]

9:30 AM: Raise subsidy on agriculture.

10:00 AM: Attack comparable international naval superpower (Greenpeace). Surrender.

11:00 AM: Decrease number of national vacation days from 49 to 48.

11:02 AM: Strike.

11:05 AM: Reinstitute 49 vacation days.

Noon: Lunch; Black coffee, cigarettes. Eat cake.

12:30 PM: Execute King, Aristocracy, Criminals, Clergy, Royal Sympathizers, Arch-Revolutionaries, Revolutionaries, and anyone else who happens to wander by.

1:30 PM: Institute Empire with help of Corsican half-brother; invade Russia.

1:45 PM: Check weather to see why it's so cold in Russia in July.

2 PM: Surrender to Russia, Prussians, Austrians, English, Italians.

2:15 PM: Realize there is no Prussia anymore; Surrender anyway.

2:16 PM: Realize that no one has surrendered to the Italians since 312 AD; hang head in shame.

3:00 PM: Eat Beef Wellington; vomit.

4:00 PM: Plant more trees along the Champs-Élysées. Check with Berlin to ensure proper shadiness ratio.

5:00 PM: Throw up baracades, escape from literary personification of irrational vengeance, get shot, collapse, die, sing. Repeat at Tony Awards.

6:00 PM: Bathe (Optional)

7:00 PM: Dinner: Wine, cigarettes, cheese, wine.

8:00 PM: Night of passion with Mistress, Wife, Au Pair, Revolutionaries, and anyone else who happens to wander by.

Midnight: Surrender to Self.

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat

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Thursday, July 14, 2005

Happy Bastille Day!

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