Introduction
This is the first of what will be three posts about bureaucracy and its vagaries. In broad strokes, it is a tragicomic farce in four acts (four reports from hell), plus the conclusions I have at last been able to draw from it all now that I'm a geezer with the luxury of time for retrospection.
Today's reports from hell explore my first two adventures with bureaucracy. I was young and trusting and idealistic during these first two acts in the farce. I thought I could make a difference.
At the September full moon, Al and I will post the second two acts in the farce, which will explore the bureaucracies I have encountered as a jaded old woman.
And then at the new moon early in October, we will post the essay that explores the conclusions I have drawn from all of this. We offer the background stories for context. You may or may not come to the same conclusions.
“Get a job with the government,” my Batty Old Auntie (The Bat, affectionately) always said, “It's steady work, it pays well, and you get good health insurance.” She had been a secretary with the Los Angeles public school system her whole working life, and retired in the kind of comfort nobody at my end of the blue collar labor pool can fantasize about getting these days. She paid nothing for the gold-plated health insurance policy she got above and beyond Medicare, and in addition to her Social Security income, she got a paycheck that was as good or better than she brought home while she was working. Fat city.
Report #1: Karma Meets Larceny:
In my early 20s. I worked summers for the Forest Service (Circus). It was the perfect seasonal complement to my ski area job in the winter. My best friend said a person could work seasonally for the Circus indefinitely and collect unemployment in the off-season. He worked for the Circus for 25 summers and eventually got a permanent position, collecting that nice salary and benefit package my Bat admired so much. He is now content and financially secure in his retirement from federal service.
I was on the timber crew those happy summers, getting paid to hike the San Juan Range of the Rockies. It was a good job. One of the tasks assigned to the timber crew (timber beasts) was planting site supervision. Flatbed semis showed up with spruce seedlings in tubes that stood in plastic trays. We checked the shipment in at the office in town and then the driver took his load to the planting site to unload.
Independent planting contractors worked the planting site by gouging a hole in the ground with a hoedad, placing the seedling in it, and backfilling. Then, since spruce seedlings are intolerant of sun, the planting contractors would build shade for them out of rocks or branches or whatever was handy. The contract specified that the shade had to be two inches taller than the seedling, and that it was to be built on the southwest side of it.
Shade was one of the things us timber beasts, as planting site supervisors, had to ensure was done and done right, both as to height and orientation. Shade in the planting contracts was a deal breaker for everyone. Planting contractors bid the labor portions of their jobs based on how much shade they had to build. It was a deal breaker for the seedlings, too, because without adequate shade they would die.
I was counting trays of seedlings on a delivery from the nursery, checking them in, with my crew boss, Roger, when he said “ah, crap” and spun on his heel, heading for the office.
I joined him there a few minutes later with the final count.
“What the hell do you mean they're eight inches!?” our big boss, Ranger Rick (yeah, really) yelled at Roger.
“I mean they're eight-inch seedlings, Rick, like I just told you.”
The temperature went up noticeably in the stuffy little office, followed by much pacing and cussing on Rick's part.
Roger and I stood there awhile and let the storm rage. Not the first Ranger Rick hissy either of us had ridden out.
“Dammit. Well, dammit, all right . . .” Rick said. “This is a six-inch contract and no way will the contractor build more shade than that. I'll order another truck. Obviously someone somewhere screwed up and checked the wrong box. These contracts pass through a lot of hands on their way through the system. It's Friday, so maybe we'll get lucky and the nursery can have some six-inchers here by Monday.”
“Um, the driver is waiting. Asked me to ask you where to take this load.” I interjected.
“Oh, yeah, well, have him unload them in the yard.”
Roger hollered these instructions out the window to the driver and the rest of our crew, who were idling in the yard outside the office.
Rick continued, “As soon as you guys get the contractors started with the six-inchers on Monday, you can take the eight-inchers out to the dump.”
Roger and I looked at Rick like we'd been slapped. “WHAT?!” we said in unison.
“You heard me, take these to the dump. Those tubes cost the Forest Service $.79 apiece, so pull the seedlings out of them and bring back the empty tubes and trays.”
“B-B-B-But boss!” I stammered, “Are you telling us to throw the seedlings away? I can't do that! They're living things! Can I maybe, um, I don't know, sit on a street corner and sell them to the tourons for $.79?”
“You know they'll all die anyway if you do that,” Roger said.
“Right. How about if I print up planting and care instructions and give them to the tourons with their seedling? These people would love to go home with a genuine Colorado Blue Spruce, Rick! I'll do it on my own time and at my own expense. At least the seedlings'd have a chance to survive. Please. Please please please don't make us do this!”
“No.” Rick said, “Flat no. Hell no. Your plan won't work for a couple of reasons, T. First, there is no way to get the money back into the system. Once government money is spent, it's spent. And second, everyone would know. This isn't exactly a big town. The District Ranger will get wind of it. He will wonder where you got 50,000 seedlings to sell. At $.79 apiece that's grand theft larceny, think felony theft, on our part. Yours and mine. We're talking hard time here. No, we can't have it. It won't work. Git.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Clock out, and one or the other of ya give yourself an extra hour extra to get out to Lime Creek to tell the contractors they have the weekend off. I don't care which. Have a nice weekend.”
He turned his back to us as Roger and I stumbled out of his office. The flatbed was unloaded and pulling away by then and our work yard was a sea of hopeful green, unaware of its impending doom.
Shoes, and Little T, the other members of the timber crew, who had stayed outside with the flatbed, walked up to us with happy Friday afternoon faces. “Zowie,” Little T said, “you guys look like your dog just died. What's up? Why did we unload in the yard and not at Lime Creek?”
Roger said “C'mon, let's go get a drink. First round is on me.” He sent me out to the planting site in the green Forest Service truck, while the three of them headed to the Old Miner's Inn, our favorite watering hole.
By the time I got back, everybody on my crew looked like their dog had died. No happy Friday afternoon faces around that table.
“I know,” I said as I joined them, putting the pitcher of beer I'd bought on the table in front of them, “this sucks huge weenies. 'S some bad bad karma to kill that many babies, you guys. I don't much want to lose my job, but crap, I don't know if I can do this. This is just so wrong on so many levels. The plastic is worth more than the living beings? This is the best way I can think of to get reincarnated as a blue spruce seedling.” I waved at the bartender and hollered, “This beer ain't cutting it, Helen, we need shots over here, and keep 'em coming.”
A couple of hours later, there was slobbering and open weeping at the Forest Circus Friday afternoon table. Suddenly Shoes perked up. “Heyyyyyy . . .” he said, “No way Ranger Rick is ever going to go out to the dump and check for the seedlings, right?”
A bleary eye or two around the table tried to focus. “P-Prollynot . . .” Roger slurred.
“He won't know if we took them to the dump or not just so long as we get rid of them, right?”
“Right,” another eye or two blinked and tried to focus. Somebody honked their snotty nose on a napkin.
“Why couldn't we take 'em out to that burn on Pool Table? Plant 'em ourselves? The survey's been done and the prescription has been written on that Pool Table site. It's in a file now that won't see the light of day for three or four years. By the time that burn comes up on the planting rotation they'll go out to check it before they write the contract and think a miracle happened or something.”
Necks were trying to stabilize all around the table. “Heyyyyyy . . .” Little T said, “That's a fine idea, Shoes! What about the mileage on the Forest Service trucks?”
“Oh, we can't use them, I'll go down to Monte and borrow my uncle's farm truck. T, you can go with me as far as South Fork to snag Ray's truck. He's sweet on you. He'll let you use it.”
By Sunday night we thought our backs were broken. Working in a burn, we were black with charcoal. It was ground into our skin. We'd worked around the clock, and hungover to boot, but we had planted almost all of the 50,000 seedlings by the time the sun came up and we had to get showered and report for duty Monday morning. Ranger Rick's precious empty tubes were neatly stacked in their trays in the work yard and I was a newly-minted insubordinate thief. It is only now that the statute of limitations has expired (I hope), that I can share this story.
It was my last summer with the Circus. I decided that, for all I loved about getting paid to hike, I needed less morally ambiguous work. There are some things a hot shower can't wash off. I went to work as a bartender by night and house painter by day in subsequent summers, and lost my chance at that fat federal pension.
Report #2: My Customer, My Enemy
Between my Bat's constant badgering about the benefits of government jobs and the 24/7/365 grind and grovel of hospitality/construction/recreation work, I forgot the pain of working for the Circus after about a decade, and in my early 30s, took a job with the Motor Vehicles Division. I started out as a clerk, but was soon promoted to supervisor of the Title and Registration side. My immediate boss was a Peter Principle kind of a guy, so I ended up running the whole northern region, doing my job and his as well.
The customer service skills I brought with me from hospitality were alien, but welcome at MVD. My customers loved me and, because they said so to my bosses, my bosses loved me too.
My supervisory position came with limited authority to override policy so I could solve problems for my customers. But there was a clearly-defined line between policy and the law, which I obviously did not have the authority to override (=break).
To acquire handicapped parking privileges then (It's different now), you had to go to the doctor, who would fill out a form certifying that you were either temporarily or permanently disabled. If you were temporarily disabled, you were issued a placard to hang from your rearview mirror. If your doctor certified you permanently disabled, you were issued a wheelchair license plate.
Here's the rub. To renew your permanently disabled license plate, every two years, MVD required you to go back to the doctor, who had to certify that you were still permanently disabled.
It was absurd to send most of them to the doctor in the first place. My favorite was a Vietnam Vet who owned three or four wheelchair plates and probably close to a dozen vehicles, only a couple of which were running and roadworthy at any given time. He was constantly in our office switching plates around.
He'd had both his legs blown off in the war. The first half-dozen times I sent him to the doctor with the requisite form I felt like a jerk. It eventually became a joke between us.
“Hey, T,” he'd say as he crutched or wheeled his way up to my window (he used prosthetics and crutches about half the time and a wheelchair the other half), “You'll be surprised to know they haven't grown back yet.”
My poor disabled customers. I was careful to make them go to a doctor the first time, so the initial issuance of the wheelchair plate was legit, but if they were in a tight spot to renew I took to forging the forms for them. This was waaayyyyyy past my supervisory override authorization and well out into the illegal as hell zone. It's only now that the statute of limitations has expired (I hope) that I dare tell this story.
As I was breaking the law for them on the sly, I set out on an above-board quest on behalf of disabled drivers. I figured that somewhere in the draconian bowels of the Motor Vehicles Division, there must be an office of policy makers who hadn't thought it through. I set out to find this person or group of people. I thought if I pointed out the flaw in their logic (the obvious escapes many), they could and would make a better choice and write better policy about renewing wheelchair plates.
I worked through chain of command all the way to the governor's office and back twice on my quest, tilting at windmills all along the way. I found no relief for my wheelchair plate customers, but I did discover that nobody's driving the bus. That office of people making policy decisions I was searching for? They don't exist. The bureaucracy is a living, breathing, sentient creature making poor policy decisions all on its own. Apparently without much interference from human beings.
It was a terrifying discovery. One of the mucky-mucks in my chain of command, Penny, told me early on she figured the policy was probably to ensure nobody abused parking privileges after a handicapped person passed away.
“For THAT we hassle every disabled person in the state?! Are you kidding me?!”
She shrugged, “I don't know that, it's just an educated guess.”
Penny was my big boss in more than one way. Not only did she sit somewhere near to the right hand side of God from where I worked, she was also big in the short, bowling-ball-shaped-Italian-grandma, let's-go-get-some-donuts-to-have-at-our-staff-meeting way. I thought the world of her. She was smart as hell and brought a common sense ethic and a safe place to vent to my work life. I needed both badly. Penny thought the world of me, too.
I was much taller than Penny, especially in my high-heeled shoes, and one day as my second run at the governor's office on behalf of the still permanently disabled was winding down, Penny crooked her finger at me, so I would bend down. She said she had a secret to tell me.
“You're committing professional suicide here, T,” she whispered.
I stood back up straight and said, too loudly, “What makes you think I would want to stay with this chickenshit outfit, Penny?”
With Penny as my powerful protector I didn't get fired for either of my failed quests, but when my family needed me to help out a few years later I tendered my resignation without hesitation, a newly-minted insubordinate liar.
We have learned from our Hopi neighbors that the mind and spirit are most open to growth when there is a smile upon the face. In keeping with that wisdom MoonLit offers this as the first of three installments in a series that take a gander at bureaucracies and how they function—or dysfunction—as the case may be.
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