The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: The Verbanac-Zappala Fiiiiiing List

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, March 15, 2010

The Verbanac-Zappala Fiiiiiing List

By now, everyone knows about this:

Eight hours later, he got a response -- but not from Mr. Hassinger. An e-mail from Mr. Zappala read: "Are you fiiiiiing kidding me! Put him squarely on the list."

As Bram suspected, our diligent minions have been scouring every waste paper basket from here to Cranberry to find the "List", and we're happy to report that we think we've actually come up with it:

The Fiiiiing List
Michael Lamb
Ted Arneault
Ohio’s Bureau of Worker’s Compensation (BWC)
Don Barden
Greg Zappala
The City of Chester PA
~~Catherine Baker Knoll~~
The corpse of Bob O’Connor
Clifford Levine
Kevin Acklin
Rich Lord
Hunt's Catsup
The Pitt News
Tommy Smothers
Toner Cartridges
Brown People
The Letter "M"
Nattering Nabobs of Negativity
Oscar Schindler
Paul Newman
George McGovern
That "Urkel" Kid
Miley Cyrus (but not Hannah Montana)
Ticket Master
Windows 7
Nickels
Carbon Paper
Yarone Zober
Bloggers
Mt. Washington (New Hampshire)
Mt. Washington (Pittsburgh)
The Ampersand
Prime Numbers greater than 2749
Wall-to-Wall Carpeting
Alpacas

Oh, and Bram: because you asked about "The List," you're now on "The List."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: I like that Lamb guy better and better all the time.; 12:25 PM
Bram Reichbaum said...: Again?; 12:55 AM
Bram Reichbaum said...: Better add Jeremy Boren, Adam Brandolph, Joe Smydo, William Randolph Hearst, Dan Gillman, Matt Hogue and fly paper.; 10:02 PM
O said...: Didn't know about fly paper. I thought Pat Ford had left the City.; 9:46 PM

The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat

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Monday, March 15, 2010

The Verbanac-Zappala Fiiiiiing List

4 comments:

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