The Wit's Guide to Bureaucracy
Or, forms over functionaries
Bureaucracy always happens in triplicate. Three times. En trio. A copy for me, a copy for you, and then a copy for our files. And what of those files? Will anyone ever refer to them?
“Pity the archaeologists of the future who unearth a stash of millions of receipts and chits for the most humdrum of errands,” writes Geoff Dyer of the paperwork in a Libyan hotel. “What impression will they form of the societies that produced this volume of paper? Imagine the scale of the catastrophe necessary to impart to these receipts and invoices the magic of a fragment of poetry on a sheet of parchment.”
“A bureaucrat’s idea of cleaning up his files is to make a copy of every paper before he destroys it.”
― Laurence J. Peter
Bureaucracy is perfection; the problem is us. So argued the late anthropologist David Graeber in his excellently titled book The Utopia of Rules. Why? Because utopians “have a naïve faith in the perfectibility of human nature and refuse to deal with humans as they actually are.” As do bureaucrats.
“Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.”
― Honoré de Balzac
And so you end up with a system that demands individuals fill out forms in block capitals, blue pen, and of course three times, along with other such “demands they insist are reasonable, and then, on discovering that they are not reasonable (since a significant number of people will always be unable to perform as expected), conclude that the problem is not with the demands themselves but with the individual inadequacy of each particular human being who fails to live up to them.”
“Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism”
― Mary McCarthy
Yet we love to hate it. (It beat both sunshine and picnics in last week’s Quote Vote!) The art critic Dave Hickey noted as much of his professors at university: “They made money working in a vicious bureaucracy, so they could spend it in their spare time doing exactly what they liked—which, as far as I could tell, was writing crummy novels about working in a vicious bureaucracy, and summering in Italy.” And Douglas Adams, creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, once designed a computer game called Bureaucracy, the point of which was to convince the bank to acknowledge a change-of-address form.
“There is no passion like a functionary for his function.”
― Georges Clemenceau
What better avatar for our secret love of bureaucracy than the emoji for paperwork? On the Apple version (📄), the microscopic text quotes their 1997 Think Different ad campaign: “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules.” Perfect! Now shrink that down to illegibility and file, file, file it away.
“There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.”
― Gore Vidal
Rebelling against bureaucracy makes a modern hero, from Batman to James Bond. Consider Slow Horses, the enjoyable Mick Herron espionage series that sticks a bunch of washed-up spies behind desks groaning with paperwork and rotting with takeout food. Who can’t relate?
“For a supposedly secret service, there’s a lot of stuff happens in triplicate,” the anti-hero Jackson Lamb observes. “Luckily, Service Standing Rule twenty-seven three is superseded by London Rules, rule one. Which is . . .?”
Guidelines for Bureaucrats
1) When in charge ponder
2) When in trouble delegate
3) When in doubt mumble
― James H. Boren
It is, of course, cover your arse.
A recipe for ripostery
This month’s Riposte Card — an illustrated quip mailed in limited quantities to paying subscribers — is by Linda Yi, crackerjack culinary cartoonist and founder of Panda Cub Stories. The quip and her interpretation thereof will be revealed next week; in the meantime subscribe to ensure you’ll get her work, along with the three previous masterpieces!
And here’s a bit more on Linda:
What’s your go-to item in a well-stocked stationery store?
Hmm... sticky note. SO MANY multi-colored sticky notes. And also 0.38mm (or skinnier!) ball point pens. I love writing tiny:)
Where do you go for inspiration and/or information?
I have a handful of quotes I go back to, time and again. Lot's of these come from my favorite children's books! One of my go-to's is from Madeleine L'Engle: "Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it."
Is there one joke, witticism, or aphorism you live by?
Lately, I've been writing the Chinese idiom “顺其自然 (Shùn qí zìrán)” in my journal a lot, to remind myself to “go with the flow.” It literally translates to “Go along with that which feels natural.” Mostly because my natural state is a ball of anxiety and I constantly feel like I need to do a lot of work to make sure things don't go wrong (which actually results in me doing a lot of unnecessary “fluff” work and procrastinating on deadlines).
So I'm trying to be more chill, and go with the flow. Progress over perfection you know? (Ed. note: I 110% know!)
What’s the best thing to put on toast?
Honey!
What work are you most proud of, and how can people support it?
My illustrated recipe card project! This is really the project where I've gotten to indulge my love for drawing adorable and delicious things, along with my love for Chinese food, and, exploring ways to cook that work better for my ADHD brain. I finally bit the bullet and launched a crowdfunding campaign for it, and I'm so excited to keep going with it! I have a total of 100 illustrations and 24 recipe cards planned, and I'm about 1/2 through :) If folks are interested, they can check it out on my indiegogo site!
Quote Vote
“If people turn to look at you on the street, you are not well dressed.”
― Beau Brummell
Next week, let’s dress for success. Or against success. Or at least briefly think about the possibility of failure whilmsht1 pulling on our pants like everyone else does, two legs at a time.
I was going to send Get Wit Quick No. 204 in triplicate but reader, I just triplicouldn’t. Note that Geoff Dyer wrote about how Libyan bureaucracy was among the world’s worst, and the capital of that country is Tripoli. Also, is the colour goldenrod used anywhere except on retro forms? My book Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting can be read in waiting rooms. Tapping the ❤️ below three times is the same as tapping it once.
Epenthesis of the week
Hats. Hats. All the way hats!
Tripoli! Brilliant! love this newsletter Ben!