Micromanagers, petty tyrants, harridans, and administrators who have overstepped their authority can, when the stars align themselves correctly, be best handled by giving them exactly what they ask for. When this involves a large quantity of unnecessary* paperwork, just take a deep breath and give it to them. Give it to them in quadruplicate, if you can.
It will take some time to pull it all together, but you won't regret it. Especially when you learn that the electronic document was so large it crashed their systems. Especially when you learn that they repeatedly "clicked" on the the file, and crashed their systems each and every time. Especially when you learn they had to call tech support to restore their systems. Especially when you learn they spent a few hours in total wrestling with the ginormous (and useless) file of documents they themselves requested, all in the pursuit of satisfying their bizarrely incompetent reading of University rules and regulations. All to decide whether or not to approve a purchase request of less than $1000.
This was so fun I think I will be, from now on, the most agreeable and cooperative member of the faculty -- at least when it comes to submitting paperwork.
*Unnecessary as deemed both by University and federal regulations.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
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16 comments:
A VP to whom I used to report, via my director, once asked me for a (completely unnecessary) write-up of a project effort. I complied most expeditiously.
She later told me that VPs generally didn't need the level of detail I provided. I didn't say so, but I had known that, and had punished her with my over-eager response. She was sent packing a while after that.
The revenge of the micro-managed.
Just reading about this made my day.
Fantastic!
I long ago stopped caring whether my unnecessary reports were well written. They aren't going to a journal referee and the rest of the world, they are going to the great circular file called a "disk drive". I can but dream of crashing someone's computer.
I'll make that my goal for next year.
Can you upload that magic electronic form to some place? So we have a template.
LOL. This attitude will bring a whole new enjoyment to preparing unnecessary paperwork. I think I'm going to get myself an expensive cup of jo and do some right now!!
That is most excellent.
Beautiful.
There was a fellow I knew many years ago who spent his entire life working for the Federal Gooberment of the United States. He told me a story about a promotion he got.
He started in his new position and he now had several subordinates reporting to him. One was a lady who had to do a very complicated report each month. She spent about 3 weeks working on it each month. It was big, messy, time consuming and it made her frantic at the end of each month. She had been producing this report monthly for several years.
He realized that nobody was using this report, so he told her to stop creating the report. She went nuts and just insisted that the report was being used. So he let her keep creating the report for another six months. He called her into his office and explained that he kept the reports in his drawer for the last six months and that no one had asked for them.
She burst into tears. It took her about an hour to calm down and then he was able to assign her some constructive work to do.
I once had a manager who asked me to prepare a report on every kind of PAPER our department used, and what its content was, and what vendor we got it from. Every envelope, post-it note, file folder, etc.
This in response to a memo from the CEO reminding us to adopt sustainable practices.
Ah. I enjoyed that. And I don't even have a paperwork job.
Ah-ha, this sounds like the perfect thing for our university's president.
It's called "vicious compliance", and when undertaken in that spirit can be a genuine pleasure.
Lise in NJ
*applause*
But of course this is only one side of the bureaucratic skirmish. In Powell's "Dance to the Music of Time", there's a character who defeats all ministerial adversaries by writing enormous reports. He in turn is checked by a friend of the narrator's, who returns one of the megareports with the simple annotation, "Please amplify".
I might try a dose of this kind of compliance. LOL!
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