carnival of bureaucrats

In China in 958, Zhai Fengda’s wife, “the mother of our family,” died.  To benefit her spirit, Zhai, then a seventy-five-year-old man, carefully and accurately followed the instructions of the Buddhist text, The Scripture on the Ten Kings.  These instructions required Zhai to make copies of Buddhist scriptures at specific time intervals following his wife’s … Continue reading COB-48: bureaucratic character

Nothing is more important for a bureaucratic report than its cover sheet.  The cover sheet is what people will see.  When the report has its brief moment of glory on the top of a paper stack on a bureaucrat’s desk, the cover sheet has to shine. You know the old saying: don’t judge a book … Continue reading COB-47: cover sheets

Nothing is more important in a bureaucracy than allowing everyone to have their voice heard.  If you just talk to yourself in your cubicle, everyone else in your department won’t hear your voice.  That’s especially true if your company’s space is equipped with plush, sound-absorbing cubicle dividers. If you have your own office, then talking … Continue reading COB-46: bureaucratic participation

The U.S. Homestead Act of 1862 was a landmark law. An exhibition at the National Archives in Washington, DC, insightfully explains: Today, Government forms are commonplace.  But when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862, they were something of a novelty. … To prove their claims, homesteaders filled out some of … Continue reading COB-45: historic forms

Many persons mistakenly imagine bureaucrats to be slave-like drones.  But drones cannot erect towering monuments of bureaucracy like the Great Pyramid of Giza.  New archeological findings prove that the workers who built the Great Pyramid of Giza were not slaves, but workers honored for their work. About 10,000 workers, working three-month shifts, took more than … Continue reading COB-44: monuments of bureaucracy