Keyword: Bureaucracy

Government organization

Oxymorons

A sure sign of bureaucracy is when the first person who answers the phone can’t help you.

Government

Any bureaucracy reorganized to enhance efficiency is immediately indistinguishable from its predecessor.

Murphy’s Laws

Only a bureaucracy can fight a bureaucracy.

Murphy’s Laws

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.

(1919 – 1990) educator & writer
Government Time

A committee is twelve men doing the work of one.

(1932 – 2009) U.S. senator (Massachusetts)
People

Bureaucracy: A system that enables ten men to do the work of one.

Definitions Government

Give a civil servant a good cause and he’ll wreck it with cliches, bad punctuation, double negatives and convoluted apology.

(1928 – 1999) British politician & diarist
Occupations People Work

The organization of any bureaucracy is very much like a septic tank. The really big chunks always rise to the top.

Murphy’s Laws

If anything can go wrong, it will do so in triplicate.

Government Murphy’s Laws Problems

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

(1911 – 2004) 40th U.S. president & actor
Government

An inexorable upward movement leads administrators to higher salaries and narrower spans of control.

Money Murphy’s Laws

An enterprise employing more than 1000 people becomes a self-perpetuating empire, creating so much internal work that it no longer needs any contact with the outside world.

Murphy’s Laws

You should have seen it when I got it.

Murphy’s Laws Problems

Bureaucracy is based on a willingness to either pass the buck or spend it.

Government

A giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

(1799 – 1850) French novelist & playwright
Government

The spirit of public service will rise, and the bureaucracy will multiply itself much faster, in time of grave national concern.

Government Murphy’s Laws

Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest amount of hot air.

Communication Murphy’s Laws Speech

In a bureaucratic hierarchy, the higher up the organization the less people appreciate Murphy's Law.

Murphy’s Laws

If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented, it wasn't worth doing.

Murphy’s Laws

Bad regulation begets worse regulation.

Murphy’s Laws