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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!houxm!hound!ganns
From: ganns@hound.UUCP (R.GANNS)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: re bureaucracy
Message-ID: <1639@hound.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Feb-86 12:31:09 EST
Article-I.D.: hound.1639
Posted: Thu Feb  6 12:31:09 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Feb-86 21:27:44 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 29


   Another point of bureaucracy is to shield individuals from personal
   accountability for incompetence, malfeasance, and indolence.

   When I used to work for Dept. of Agriculture, my personnel record
   kept getting fouled up -- each time there was an update, a mistake
   was made, and always to my detriment. Finally, I had the opportunity
   to pay the personnel office a visit (it was several thousand miles
   from my main work location) and confront the people who were
   causing me the trouble.

   When I enquired as to who had been responsible for several blunders,
   I was told that it was not possible to trace any particular item
   back to its handler. The system worked like this:


       Personnel files with attached items for update were circulated
       among the half-dozen people in the group responsible for
       the updates. Each person in turn filled out those items
       which struck his/her fancy at the moment, then passed it on
       to the next person in the group. At the end of the process,
       no one outside the group could tell who had done what on any
       given record, and the group members had conveniently short
       memories.

    The individual telling me this managed to keep a straight face
    while describing this to me, and thereby won my admiration for
    a fleeting instant. A VERY fleeting instant.