The Truth, Bureaucracies, and Bureaucrats
Phase One: “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” invariably and often inconveniently falls short of the unabridged and exhaustive truth in many important – and nearly infinite unimportant – respects. If you happen to work in a bureaucracy, these may all be blithely ignored. Except, of course, for the one that gets you fired. As this particular eventuality is entirely unpredictable in a true bureaucracy, no one bothers much about it.
Phase Two: Despite their seemingly well deserved reputations for playing fast and loose with the truth, true bureaucrats are in fact Truth Experts. For truth, being the second most important and powerful created thing in Creation, is an immensely nuanced thing. There are variations, shadings, subtleties, phases, nuances, etc., etc., of the truth, and an infinite number of perspectives on each. This, of course, makes truth a rather slippery thing to get hold of. What is the difference, for example, between the comprehensive truth and the exhaustive truth, or between the painful truth and the inconvenient truth? (Yes, there are differences.)
Phase Three: Through this nearly infinitely torturous labyrinth of genuine – if not honest - complexity confidently strides the seasoned bureaucrat. Able to successfully navigate the warp and woof of the fabric of truth, he is a paragon of subtle, complex analysis of all things touching on verity. And he knows it. This merely apparent arrogance is, of course, the problem. Well, to be truthful about it, it’s really only one of the problems. To be painfully truthful about it, it’s actually only one of the many problems. This is to say nothing about the comprehensive or indeed the exhaustive truth about the problem.
Phase Four: For all of the problems fairly or unfairly associated with bureaucrats, the core truth of the matter is that they work in a bureaucracy. Since bureaucracies necessarily have a hierarchical structure, all bureaucrats – regardless of title or position – work under other bureaucrats. The inconvenient and inescapable truth (Both – these confluences in the subtleties of truth turn up all the time) is that no one ever likes to work under anyone – least of all a bureaucrat. Truth be told, this is what makes life in a bureaucracy so, um, challenging, and is at the root of why bureaucrats are the way they are.
Phase Five: In practice, it goes something like this. Once the seasoned bureaucrat gets the subtleties of a matter well and thoroughly worked out, in order to gain approval it has to navigate umpteen multiple layers of the bureaucracy and meet with the approval of innumerable other bureaucrats, all of which are unhappy with the fact that they work under another bureaucrat, each of increasing importance and impressiveness of title. So of course, approval is obtained with cosmic infrequency. Some say that this is the unavoidable nature of bureaucracies. Others argue that this is the nature of the truth. A small minority holds that this is in fact due to what the truth does to bureaucrats. Still others argue that the problem is due to the fact that bureaucracies subtly select for two important characteristics in bureaucrats: intelligence and masochism. The truth, it turns out, is that they’re all quite correct.
Phase One: “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” invariably and often inconveniently falls short of the unabridged and exhaustive truth in many important – and nearly infinite unimportant – respects. If you happen to work in a bureaucracy, these may all be blithely ignored. Except, of course, for the one that gets you fired. As this particular eventuality is entirely unpredictable in a true bureaucracy, no one bothers much about it.
Phase Two: Despite their seemingly well deserved reputations for playing fast and loose with the truth, true bureaucrats are in fact Truth Experts. For truth, being the second most important and powerful created thing in Creation, is an immensely nuanced thing. There are variations, shadings, subtleties, phases, nuances, etc., etc., of the truth, and an infinite number of perspectives on each. This, of course, makes truth a rather slippery thing to get hold of. What is the difference, for example, between the comprehensive truth and the exhaustive truth, or between the painful truth and the inconvenient truth? (Yes, there are differences.)
Phase Three: Through this nearly infinitely torturous labyrinth of genuine – if not honest - complexity confidently strides the seasoned bureaucrat. Able to successfully navigate the warp and woof of the fabric of truth, he is a paragon of subtle, complex analysis of all things touching on verity. And he knows it. This merely apparent arrogance is, of course, the problem. Well, to be truthful about it, it’s really only one of the problems. To be painfully truthful about it, it’s actually only one of the many problems. This is to say nothing about the comprehensive or indeed the exhaustive truth about the problem.
Phase Four: For all of the problems fairly or unfairly associated with bureaucrats, the core truth of the matter is that they work in a bureaucracy. Since bureaucracies necessarily have a hierarchical structure, all bureaucrats – regardless of title or position – work under other bureaucrats. The inconvenient and inescapable truth (Both – these confluences in the subtleties of truth turn up all the time) is that no one ever likes to work under anyone – least of all a bureaucrat. Truth be told, this is what makes life in a bureaucracy so, um, challenging, and is at the root of why bureaucrats are the way they are.
Phase Five: In practice, it goes something like this. Once the seasoned bureaucrat gets the subtleties of a matter well and thoroughly worked out, in order to gain approval it has to navigate umpteen multiple layers of the bureaucracy and meet with the approval of innumerable other bureaucrats, all of which are unhappy with the fact that they work under another bureaucrat, each of increasing importance and impressiveness of title. So of course, approval is obtained with cosmic infrequency. Some say that this is the unavoidable nature of bureaucracies. Others argue that this is the nature of the truth. A small minority holds that this is in fact due to what the truth does to bureaucrats. Still others argue that the problem is due to the fact that bureaucracies subtly select for two important characteristics in bureaucrats: intelligence and masochism. The truth, it turns out, is that they’re all quite correct.
