The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: A Bureaucrat's Aside

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...

Monday, May 11, 2009

A Bureaucrat's Aside - Mayoral Elections

Bram said the secret word, and now the duck will come down from the ceiling and give us this thought experiment:

Let's suppose that there was a guy who had become really pissed off at the mayor because of something the Mayor (or his staff) had allegedly done. This guy alleged that there were shady goings on in the Mayor's office (and there have certainly been rumors and circumstantial evidence to coroborate such charges), but because he wouldn't play ball with these guys, he was subsequently fired from his government job. Let's also assume that this guy is legally obliged to keep his mouth shut and has since moved on to another town.

Now, if such a person was bitter and vindictive (and there were no negative consequences), you would think that such a guy would figure out a way to leak information which would be detrimental to the mayor's campaign. And, of course, in order to be most effective, one would think that such information would be leaked with only a few days left in the campaign leaving the mayor with little or no time to respond.

Again, just a thought experiment.

7 comments:

MH said...: Except that doesn't explain why the avenger would let the fund-raising gap stretch to a near insurmountable advantage instead of making like a generic diaper and leaking earlier.; 9:15 PM
MH said...: I mean, the only way it would make sense to wait this long is if avenger had a demonstrated history of not being very sharp. Only people who run city planning departments and the URA could be that thick.; 9:20 PM
Bram Reichbaum said...: The secret word was "BLAGOJEVICH"?; 9:34 PM
O said...: BLAGOJEVICHI hear if you say it three times, he appears and tries to steal your "fucking hair".; 7:28 AM
Burgher Jon said...: Wishful thinking. I think short of a picture of Ravenstahl with a gun that is literally smoking we are out of luck.

Forde essentially collected black mail money, why would the voters believe anything he says with a couple days left in the election?; 10:32 AM
MH said...: 'BLAGOJEVICHI hear if you say it three times, he appears and tries to steal your "fucking hair".'

So that's what happened to my hair. I thought I was just getting old.; 4:52 PM
Infinonymous said...: Thia one eludes me.

Unless I missed something, the closest thing to a last-minute revelation has involved the repeat performance regarding a late $15K from a California developer. Two problems. (1) It was leaked by the campaign's finance filing. (2) That isn't a bombshell -- it's business as unusual at Ravenstahl Inc.

If such a leaker is planning to drop a bomb, he has -- what, 11 hours and change to unleash the blockbuster before the polls open?; 7:47 PM