The other Parkinson's law
I'm always pointing to Parkinson's Laws as the only explanation you need for bureaucracies. You don't need civics or constitutions or ideologies or parties. Just refer to Parkinson and you'll be able to predict every single action of every 'normal' government and corporation and university and church. ('Normal' excludes wacked-out bizarros like North Korea and US.)

The one law I don't mention in this context is the most famous, the one about work expanding to fill time. It doesn't really apply to bureaucracies. Though individual employees may function this way, the organization's work correlates solely with budget limits, and the sole purpose of the organization is to expand its budget. Time isn't a controlling variable.

I've been noticing the time law in my own life. 'Semi-retired' means that I work on software about six months every two years. During the non-work periods, my daily tasks expand and sprawl PRECISELY as Parkinson describes. The latest non-work period included a switch back to vegy diet, which means more time spent on shopping and cooking; and an increase in walking.

The current work period, which began in October, has been especially intense. Weekly conference calls, weekly deadlines, piles of new learning simultaneous with development and QA tasks. I've been putting in 50-60 hours a week, which absolutely required streamlining the 'stamps and envelopes'.

Well, what did I eliminate? Kept the improved diet, kept the walking. Both of those have made the increased work possible. What the hell was I doing with the 50-60 hours before this? Aside from pure piddling and pointless net-watching, I was making graphics. Adding complex pictures and animations to this blog, which was a sort of ersatz work. That's the one definable activity that had to yield.

I'm tempted to say that I'm getting too old for this.... but when I think back to previous periods of hard work in my '30s and '40s, I remember being equally tired and equally stretched. Probably more.

The major difference: in my '30s I was still operating under the stupid delusion that working hard and doing all the right things might make me acceptable. So I tried to be nice and polite and obedient. Now I know better. I've figured out that I'm innately and incurably unacceptable. No amount of niceness will alter my natural low position in the social hierarchy.

So: I'm still polite (maybe) but I'm not nice. I hold my ground in a way that never happened before. When the bosses want a change that's practically impossible, or a change that would require starting over from scratch, I tell them about it quickly and firmly. Amazingly, they seem to understand.

Labels: coot-proofing, TMI

  ¶ 12:37 PM