2004-02-21
micromanaging bureaucrats | I take some solace (not much, mind you) in knowing that there are others out there (like Ms Frizzle, a New York City Schoolteacher) in the same situation as I am at my job | I've modified her comments slightly [changes are bracketed] to make her descriptions more universal, but in a recent blog entry, she writes:
This is what I have to deal with at work | In my case it was an order to move some file cabinets immediately, instead of meeting with clients and staff to resolve a complex problem | Sadly, I believe that it represents the state of the nation | Furthermore, mere knowledge of this malaise in no wise corrects real foul ups nor addresses society's present social ills |
Social conservatives got it all wrong | It isn't liberalism, per se, that's messing up the functioning of society, so much as it is unthinking administrators (in both public and private sector) making uncaring decisions, based on following written prescriptives that were cobbled together without any due thought to how the outcomes are affected by edits written by those with no direct understanding of their actual end results |
Which brings me back to my last post's conclusion, namely, if you don't know what the natural rythym's of an ecosystem are, and you decide to mess with them, then the end results will be messed up, too |
And I still agree with the guy who calls himself the "intellectual gun lover" in his Law of Diminishing Returns, and asserts that it is probably the Peter Principle (you know, promote someone to their highest level of incompetence) that results in non-representative government (whether in corporate nations on land-based nations) being so shody with outcomes, and which end up hurting the polity but not the political elite | ¶ 14:20
A micromanaging [bureaucrat], on the other hand, cannot distinguish between what matters and what is less important. This kind of [bureaucrat] might observe a lesson and comment only on a petty aspect of the bulletin boards, or some other item on a checklist.
I would say to many of the [line staff] out there: Your complaints are aimed in the wrong place! You ought to be complaining about [bureaucrats] who are not good leaders, who are in it for the money, who can't see the forest for the trees. And keep in mind that every policy passes through several levels of bureaucracy before reaching the [line staff], so it is possible that your [supervising bureaucrat] is nitpicking because his or her instructional superintendent or even regional superintendent is setting an example of petty, punitive enforcement of policies rather than open-minded, supportive leadership.
This is what I have to deal with at work | In my case it was an order to move some file cabinets immediately, instead of meeting with clients and staff to resolve a complex problem | Sadly, I believe that it represents the state of the nation | Furthermore, mere knowledge of this malaise in no wise corrects real foul ups nor addresses society's present social ills |
Social conservatives got it all wrong | It isn't liberalism, per se, that's messing up the functioning of society, so much as it is unthinking administrators (in both public and private sector) making uncaring decisions, based on following written prescriptives that were cobbled together without any due thought to how the outcomes are affected by edits written by those with no direct understanding of their actual end results |
Which brings me back to my last post's conclusion, namely, if you don't know what the natural rythym's of an ecosystem are, and you decide to mess with them, then the end results will be messed up, too |
And I still agree with the guy who calls himself the "intellectual gun lover" in his Law of Diminishing Returns, and asserts that it is probably the Peter Principle (you know, promote someone to their highest level of incompetence) that results in non-representative government (whether in corporate nations on land-based nations) being so shody with outcomes, and which end up hurting the polity but not the political elite | ¶ 14:20
