What creates a junior bureaucrat? First, you need low self-esteem. Someone who has a job that is repetitive and has no clear goals or measurable results. Couple that with levels of management above that has one requirement,”don’t embarrass me.”
How does a junior bureaucrat gain job satisfaction? By creating problems for the people they serve. If they sense someone in their presence who has a disregard for them and their work, this is open season. If they sense someone who has a real job and lots of success in life, it’s open season. If they feel someone is going to take a lot of their time with dumb questions, they will pay dearly.
Here are three examples from family and friends to demonstrate how a junior bureaucrat gets enjoyment from their work.
First, a family member was putting new asphalt on their driveway. To get a permit they had to put down a $1,000 deposit. This was to insure to the Township that the apron on Township property would be restored to specifications. That’s the Township’s story. But, the truth is simple. Once they have your $1,000 deposit, there is no end to the entertainment value they can get from you. You have just become their circus monkey.
First problem, the culvert under the driveway on Township property was rusted away and needed to be replaced. The Township had replaced two culverts on the street where neighbors were not re-doing driveways since they were causing standing water and health hazards. But, the Township is out of money for replacing culverts, so this year you get to replace the culvert on Township property with their specification culvert installed to their specs. And, grade the area on their property to their specs and seed it to their specs. The cost to do all this, $1,000. How many inspections does it take to satisfy the inspector, so far 6-8 and counting. The grass isn’t thick enough now. Of course, the season for growing grass is pretty much over. It’s spring and fall in Illinois. But, until the grass meets muster, no deposit back.
Response to this experience, ” I just want to go right through the phone and punch their lights out. ” Given this response the junior bureaucrat knows he or she has done a perfect job. They have made a simple assignment an endless irritant and caused stress far beyond any stress the junior bureaucrat will ever experience in their work life.
Second, a similar experience in a state in the Northwest US. Another family member lives on a county road served by a bridge. The bridge was unsafe. It’s a county bridge. The county says you build a new bridge to our specs and we will pay our portion based on the amount of property we own across the bridge compared to the total property served by the bridge. After haggling for years, the residents built a new bridge. Of course, some residents refused to pay or help with the new bridge. So, every property owner who paid some for the bridge had to put up a $6,000 deposit. (sound familiar?).
Bridge is done. The county likes the bridge. But, in one corner of the bridge there are some raspberries. Until the raspberries are removed, no deposits back. Can you imagine how hard that junior bureaucrat had to work to find a reason not to refund the deposits?
Third example. A friend has Parkinson’s Disease. He was notified by the Veteran’s Administration that he might quality for medical help since the served in Viet Nam and was exposed to Agent Orange. He has been trying to over 6 months to get this approved. The most recent example the was told to report to a veteran’s hospital for a physical. A woman in charge told him he didn’t need a physical. She reviewed his file. He was told there were key items in the file she needed to copy to process his claim. While he sat there for over 40 minutes she went through the file and hand-copied those items. He asked if she had a copy machine and got a nasty response. That was a month ago and he still has no idea what is going on with his claim.
Why bring all this up? This is what Obama has in mind for you, your kids, and your grand kids. Daily interactions with junior bureaucrats to get to see a doctor. To explain why you bought over $600 worth of goods from a vendor in your small business and didn’t submit a form 1099. His plan is to hire millions of well-trained, union, junior bureaucrats to shepherd you through the next phase of your life. He wants to let you experience daily options to want to go through the phone and punch someone. After all, as a community organizer, his job was to help the people find ways around the junior bureaucrats to job the system. To pick all the low hanging fruit the government was hanging out there with a minimum of stress.
Did you listen carefully to Shirley Sherrod’s comments to the NAACP about the “white farmer.” She acknowledged she was jerking him around because he was white. It’s a great sport.
This plan is not income redistribution, it’s stress redistribution. He wants all of us to enjoy the pleasures of dealing with the government for all of our daily needs.
