Forum Discussion
briansue
Oct 15, 2017Explorer
By chance I happened on an article online today about bureaucrats - I think this is what pickup owners are up against at the border with Mexico these days - read the quote following..........
Why bureaucrats don't seem to care
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/why-bureaucrats-dont-seem-to-care/ar-AAtlJsw?li=BBnbfcN
While working there, I learned that the routine of everyday work at the front lines of public service is not quite what it seems from the outside. It is neither as simple, repetitive, nor rule-governed as one might believe. If frontline work is soul-sucking, it is less because bureaucrats must mechanically apply rules than because they must shoulder, day in and day out, the weight of difficult discretionary decisions which most people have the luxury to ignore.
Frontline bureaucrats are often portrayed as unthinking automata, yet they are in fact vested with a substantial margin of discretion. This is where the challenge of implementing policy starts. It is not that rules are absent; on the contrary, they abound. But they are often sufficiently ambiguous that they lend themselves to various plausible interpretations, or so numerous that they conflict with one another. When this is the case, bureaucrats must exert independent judgment to figure out what to do. If they were to stop doing so and adhere religiously to the scripts provided to them, public-service agencies would come to a halt.
Why bureaucrats don't seem to care
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/why-bureaucrats-dont-seem-to-care/ar-AAtlJsw?li=BBnbfcN
While working there, I learned that the routine of everyday work at the front lines of public service is not quite what it seems from the outside. It is neither as simple, repetitive, nor rule-governed as one might believe. If frontline work is soul-sucking, it is less because bureaucrats must mechanically apply rules than because they must shoulder, day in and day out, the weight of difficult discretionary decisions which most people have the luxury to ignore.
Frontline bureaucrats are often portrayed as unthinking automata, yet they are in fact vested with a substantial margin of discretion. This is where the challenge of implementing policy starts. It is not that rules are absent; on the contrary, they abound. But they are often sufficiently ambiguous that they lend themselves to various plausible interpretations, or so numerous that they conflict with one another. When this is the case, bureaucrats must exert independent judgment to figure out what to do. If they were to stop doing so and adhere religiously to the scripts provided to them, public-service agencies would come to a halt.
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