The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Amongst the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos

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, November 14, 2006

Amongst the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos

I want to chime in on something that I saw here via this place, specifically, the following bit from the P-G on Bonnie Mayor Lukey's criticism of Councilman Otis' criticism of the Mayor's budget:

"I'm not willing to sacrifice the city budget and use the city budget process to talk about political and personal agendas."

Seriously? Am I reading this right? Is a politician offended that another politician would take a political issue and turn it into a political issue against him? I am shocked, SHOCKED that this could have happened under my very nose! Think of the children! Alert the media! Quick! To the fallout shelter: POLITICS IS INVADING GOVERNMENT!!!!11!!

The Horror! The Horror!

Here I was thinking that the politicians that we elect would hold hands, sing "Kumbaya", and set aside their personal ambitions for the common good. I had no idea that someone could put political gain ahead of the good of the polis.

Of course, I've been living under a rock since 384 BC and had no knowledge of most of the canon of Western Political Theory, including Aristotle's Politics, Machiavelli's The Prince, Hobbes' Leviathan , or even the Federalist Papers and I also believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Elves, Magical Rainbow Farting Unicorns, and the presence of WMDs in Iraq that are an imminent threat to the United States.

Think of what this will mean to the Republic: Elected officials will start caring more about polls than good policy! They will start trying to play up issues that appeal to the electorate! They will become divisive against their colleagues, hoping to achieve marginal gains at their expense! They will play to the electorate's basest fears and desires, hoping to gain votes! They will even say things that aren't technically true.

*sigh*

I mean maybe you have to be as old and grizzled as me and you have to spend your career in public service to realize that politics is pervasive in government, so I'll forgive anyone with the naivete to think it is otherwise. But seriously people, only the delusional or mildly retarded think that anyone in elected government is solely looking out for the common good and don't care a whit about upcoming elections.

I hope I didn't shatter anyone's illusions.

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Amongst the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos

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