A mold
Bureaucracies are a
strange life form, a system of well laid out processes that never seem to
engage clockwork efficiency of alacrity or urgency.
Like mold, it takes
away fervency or freshness leaving a footprint of lethargy, inertia and boredom
as time ticks away as if it has no function of measurement than an abyss of
nothingness clawing in darkness.
Those who people it
Yet, agents and
agencies desire the omnipresence of bureaucracy to ensure that those who depend
on it are introduced to the fact that they are powerful, they have
responsibilities and they move on a whim except when coerced from above to do
what could have been done long before without fuss.
Yet, we wait,
almost helpless, almost hopeless and almost listless that a time will come when
bureaucracy moving as it might be at a speed that makes drying paint look
instantaneous, bureaucracy will finally respond to why it was put in place to
fulfil all righteousness and to give the needlessly engaged a sense of purpose.
Complicate the simple with ease
You have to ask why
what is seemingly easy to do is made unnecessarily complicated, inscrutable and
impossible to action immediately, if not for each little person in the
bureaucratic workflow to engage in the power-play of self-importance to the
detriment of the organisation at large.
Nowhere was it
self-evident than when I visited two banks to open accounts. In the first, I had
to book an appointment for the next day, go through tens of questions, sign
forms to the point that my fingers bled ink into the cuneiform of my signature
and yet will wait days to be able to access the account for business.
The second just
required a walk-in on a Saturday afternoon, I was seeing an advisor in 10
minutes and within 30 minutes, I had a bank card and my account was live for
transactions, just like that.
It goes without
saying that there is probably a century of history between the first and the
second bank which is nimble, modern and streamlined to eliminate the encumbrance
of bureaucratic time-wasting pretending to back-office operations.
Times change but not for that
What seems
well-oiled to whoever set up that system does not really fit into the generally
instantaneous gratification that we all have acquired through the shortness of
attention spans that has become our way of life by reason of competition for
our skill and subservience to some greater or lesser cause.
There might be use
for mold as there is use for bureaucracy if you are part of it rather than
depending on it.
One learns patience
before aggravation, calm before disquiet and acquiescence before complaint when
faced with immotile bureaucracy, we are forced to find the kind of inducement
that will set a bureaucracy off like an avalanche towards the solution – by which
time, a lesson is learnt, no improvements are made and the next person down the
line succumbs to the throes of that wonderfully tortuous wringer called
bureaucracy – it is just the way we have always done things, you are told.
