Thursday, October 01, 2015
Costly tickets
Even though everybody knows a "shutdown" will not happen, the idiot Repooflicans continue to create Broadway theatrics about a "shutdown". Like their role-models on actual Broadway, this fake Broadway is tremendously expensive.
Example. FCC is a genuinely useful agency, basically the Zoning Commission and Parking Enforcement for radio spectrum. Like most useful agencies it's understaffed and underbudgeted. Still, it had to spend extra money and time preparing a Plan For Orderly Shutdown in case the Broadway accidentally turned to reality.
All agencies, useful or evil, large or small, prepare similar documents every year.
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Semi-relevant sidenote on usual topic: Parkinson observed that agencies and organizations keep increasing their budgets and workforces regardless of usefulness, which isn't quite true. He came close to the above observation about FCC in his discussion of fancy buildings; but he didn't really connect the two points.
I wonder if the transition from useful-and-small to useless-and-bloated is an addiction process. When humans lose something important like a wife or a job, they often start drinking or drugging in an attempt to bring back the sense of completeness. It doesn't work, but it seems to bring a hint or a promise of restoration, so the habit increases. Is this an organizational equivalent? After your original mission is done or obsolete, do you miss the sense of utility and value? Do you try to restore it by guzzling money and employees?
¶ 3:58 PM 
