The training library, which I sit next to, is full of how-to-be-an-innovative-executive book, with titles that desperately try to sound exciting and different. Teaching the Elephant to Dance. Who Moved My Cheese? And the gem I think my bosses boss has been dipping into: If It Ain't Broken, Break It!
Nattering on and on about customer service and best practices and so forth rings pretty hollow when you turn around and insist everyone follow standardized procedures regardless of the effectiveness of same in the particular case. Actually, it wouldn't really be a problem if it weren't for my psycho ex-boss - she's just obstructionist enough to drag out the formal procedures memo and use it to erect roadblocks to efficiency and good service. Better mindless adherence to an outdated rule than actually trying to get a job done... otherwise we'd just go on doing business-as-usual under the executive radar.
What, I can hear you thinking, was I expecting when I went to work for a bureaucracy? Yak herding is looking better by the day, since my mailbox remains woefully empty and echoing. Well, empty and echoing except for my neighbor's mail - the carrier seems to be confusing Apt. 706 with 704 all too frequently of late.
And while I'm complaining, I'll just throw in a mention of the gravel quarry I managed to collect in my right shoe this morning on the way to work. And my trepidation at the upcoming State of the Union speech tonight. And my annoying clothes "dryer" which really only seems to warm up the clothes enough to make them damp and extra wrinkly - thus providing that today I'm wearing the barely-uncomfortable jeans I hate while all of my laundry finishes hang-drying. Have I mentioned that I hate the phone?