Ode to Bureaucracy

 

The principal characteristic of a bureaucracy

Is that no one is responsible for it.

Its first function is to ignore the heart.

It is impossible to change.

 

Ask any bureaucrat and you will find

Someone who despises the rules and whims

Of someone else's bureaucracy.

The system and its files belong to no one.

 

Some bureaucrats are victims of proliferating paper,

Some bureaucrats learn to manage paper and profit by it.

Others try to dodge the system and remain human

While at the same time being bureaucrats.

 

The bureaucracy is a monster

That we invited home to dinner,

Efficiency with a case of cancer.

Sally Clay
January 19, 1991

 

*** Sharewrite 1991 Sally Clay ***
Permission is granted for personal distribution of this document
as long as it is unchanged in any way and this notice is included.
For permission to reprint it for general publication, contact me at
zangmo@sallyclay.net.

 


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