Andrew Rondeau

Andrew is the owner of this website and has been a Leader, Manager, Coach and Consultant for the last twenty-five years.

Management Bureaucracy Gone Mad

By Andrew Rondeau
Published 05/7/2007

During the weekend, I had dinner with some friends. One of the friends works for a large Public Sector company. She often tells me of stories of bureaucracy in relation to the office she works in. The latest story is one I have to share. As part of her administration role, she has to do a fair amount of photocopying. Without going into detail, the documents being photocopied are very important and have to be completed within certain timeframes. In order to use the photocopier each staff member has to input a code. The code is used to charge the costs to the correct budgets. Quite often, the photocopier breaks down. When this happens, it is reported and can take several weeks to be repaired.

Meanwhile, my friend is not allowed to use any other photocopier because:

1. her code only works on her departments photocopier
2. the other

departments don’t let her because she would have to enter that departments code and they will be charged for the paper used

The impact – no photocopying of the important documents happens. The receivers of the photocopied documents don’t receive them and they can’t work and so on. All this impact for the cost of a few pages of paper. The cost of several individuals not working is much much higher!

Therefore, for the cost of a few pages of paper a number of the departments in this large Public Sector company stop work!!!

How crazy is that?

My friend gets very frustrated.

The managers don’t care.

Fundamentals of management is about being there for your staff; letting them get on and do their job well. As a manager, one should remove any of the blockages which are stopping them provide a great service.

Have you heard of such madness? Please leave a comment and share it with us all!

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5 Responses to "Management Bureaucracy Gone Mad"

an unknown user

said this on 22 Jul 2007 2:24:15 AM EDT

This is so why I work for myself.

A friend of mine from college still works there ... he's been there over a decade at this point. And his tales of meetings and BS are straight out of "Office Space" and "Dilbert". I mean, the truth in these comedic mediums is what makes it funny.

Man, I'd go nuts working in a place like that.

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an unknown user

said this on 03 Aug 2007 7:24:46 AM EDT

I'm living in France right now, if you think that's bad you should hear some of the stuff that happens here.

As an example, it seems like people here in both the public or private sector are horribly afraid of flat corporate structures. I've stopped counting the number of very small businesses I've visited (sometimes even with only 1 employee besides the owner) where the owner has felt the need to produce a very detailed organizational chart carefully showing the hierarchy.

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an unknown user

said this on 03 Aug 2007 7:26:11 AM EDT

As a soon-to-be escapee from corporate culture I know too many examples that fit your story, Andrew. I never cease to be amazed at the energy and inventiveness that go into actually stopping progress. One observation: it can be a person who has no real power who will hold incredible control over copy machines, coffee machines (yes!), and mail deliveries.

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Yusu Hung

said this on 20 Apr 2008 5:47:00 AM EDT

I am from one of the Far Eastern countries and I heard this story of pure stupid bureaucracy. A European expatriate had his passport expired; after filling all the usual documentatios and attaching all the necessary originals of this & that. He posted them to his concerned consulate. apparently they (consulate) lost his passport + documents; They (the consulate) sent him an apology letter advising him that he has to travel back to his country of origion to obtain a new passport using their apology letter as evidence!
Those bureaucrates seem to forget that he is not in his country of origion and still needs a passport to travel.
Poor man it has costed him more than the fee of renewing a passport just to get another passport. All expatriates here learnt to avoid doing the same thing and instead travel back home in time to renew their expiring passport.

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