Beware the Bureaucrats

It's Crunchtime. The pressure is on. We are all working really hard, worried about losing our jobs, proving to anyone out there who is interested that we are really, really needed.

Now that should be a good thing. But Beware of the Bureaucrats.

There are bureaucrats on all levels, and the more levels there are, the stupider your job will become.

Because bureaucrats don't so much need to prove that they are needed, but that they are important. And the actual fact is that, the higher up the bureaucrat tree, the less of importance is actually done.

And, like us folk down below, the bureaucrat is also trying to keep a job.

So when jobs go on the bottom, the people who do the supervising start to do all kinds of self-preservation stuff, stuff that just gets in the way of the rest of us doing our job. But they do it with attitude.

When things are going well, a boss will be happier letting you do your job, but when it's Crunchtime, you will be the one getting crunched. Crunched as in squeezed. New rules. New rules just for the sake of new rules. Just to prove that we need all those bosses. To make the new rules.

How does this happen? Look at the workplace as a series of concentric circles. Now the largest one, believe it or not, is for the biggest bosses. There are only a few, but their word covers a large area. They look down on the next concentric circle, which consists of a few more bosses, that are squeezed by the big guys. Depending on how well established your establishment is, there may be many concentric circles. And in the smallest concentric circles, being looked on and squeezed by all the levels of management circles, are us, the worker bees.

Now I know people think of government when they think of bureaucracy. But it happens in any business larger than one small store with a few employees. Because as soon as you start to add layers of management, you have people whose primary purpose is justifying their existence.

So when things get tough, what do the bosses do?

They have meetings. Lots of meetings. The big bosses talk about what needs to be done way down below, and then meet with the next layer of bosses and tell them what needs to be done, and this proceeds through each smaller (less powerful) circle. And as each less powerful group meets, in order to justify their importance, they will add new rules.

You can't question the boss. If you questioned the boss, you would be implying that you know more than they do. Or that they are wrong. Or, worst of all, that they are superfluous.

They rarely ask for input. If they do, this is to give the impression that they are the kind of managers that listen to their employees, which they don't. But again, it justifies their existence, as it is an excuse for ever more meetings.

Now here's the thing. If you people in the small circle were doing a great job, you can't anymore. Because then there truly would be no need for all those fat paychecks over you. They could leave and you'd still do a good job. So they have to change what you're doing. If you are coming to work early, you can't do that anymore. If you stock your shelves twice a week, you either have to do it three times or once.

And you have to let these bosses know what you are doing, otherwise they can't make new rules, and if they can't make (and monitor) the new rules, they might just as well go home, and save the company a whole lot of money. Which they aren't going to do. So they will micromanage, without ever trying to find out what works, and certainly not what you need. And when things start to go wrong, that will only justify the need for more supervision, and, yes, more rules.

How do you survive? The only possible way to keep your job is to keep your mouth shut and follow the rules. And not do a great job anymore.

So when you look around you at work, at the grocery store, in any of the places you do business, or at any government organization, and you see that things are working worse than ever, thank a bureaucrat.