Stross on bureaucracy

[sawyl]

Todays insightful quote on the nature of bureaucracy comes via Charlie Stross' excellent The Apocalpse Codex:

Bureaucracies excel at performing tasks that must be done consistently whether the people assigned to them are brilliant performers or bumbling fools. You can't always count on having Albert Einstein in the patent office, so you design its procedures to work even if you hire Mr. Bean by accident... Wizards and visionaries are all very good but you cannot count on them for legwork and form-filling. Which is why there is tail-chasing and make-work and so many committee meetings and reports to read and checklists to fill out, to keep the low achievers preoccupied.

Stross, C., (2012), The Apocalypse Codex, Orbit, 281

Amen!