The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Mayoral Tiger Hunt

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, June 14, 2007

Mayoral Tiger Hunt

OK, look:

I don't care if the Mayor tried to crash an American Express event at the Oakmont Country Club in a misguided attempt to meet Tiger Woods. Seriously. When I was his age, I crashed (or at least attempted to crash) many events at which the security was equally impressive, if not more so.

By the way, and for those of you that were unaware, the Secret Service does not look kindly upon gate crashers. They will fuck you up. I am not kidding. Do not fuck with them. They put nobly things in places that only your doctor or a friend with a safety word dares to probe.

Still, I wasn't the Mayor of a major metropolitan area at the time... or even the mayor of Pittsburgh.

What gets me about this whole event is that, if you believe the rumors, Luke was just trying to meet Tiger Woods. If so, the whole course of events is 100% unacceptable.

Now, if I was Mayor (and, God and several thousand rigged ballot boxes later willing I will be), I would have realized that there would have been a far more simple way to realize this goal:

Step One: Have the previous Mayor die.

Check.

Step Two: Have the local public golf course renamed after former Mayor.

Check.

Step Three: Invite Golf celebrities to help re-dedicate the local public golf course. If they protest, say that there will be free golfing lessons... for children... homeless children... with cancer, or something. Golfers are notorious suckers for stuff like that.

Step Four: Meet Tiger Woods. Get photo with said Mr. Woods... and maybe Ernie Els if he looks lonely.

See, if Bob O'Connor were still alive, he'd have Dick Skrinjar on this assignment so fast it would have made your neck snap back like the 18th hole at Oakmont.

I don't know what that metaphor means, though. I think it has something to do with a Birdie or a Mulligan, or a 4 wood, or something...

The point is: being mayor is better than meeting Tiger Woods. This cannot be proven, but it is. Just like Mt. Everest is, or like being beaten by the Secret Service isn't.

Goodnight!

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat

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Thursday, June 14, 2007

Mayoral Tiger Hunt

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