You may have to experience the dead hand of bureaucracy to believe its dangerous reach. There are bureaucracies where the hand's touch is slight - a mere brush - and others where it stretches out and chokes initiative and efficiency.
I was surprised the first time I encountered the heavy version. A bit of paperwork that should have taken a couple of days became a six month project. A project that should have taken three weeks was projected to require a year.
That would be scary enough but there was something even scarier. The people who made these estimates seriously believed those times were reasonable and that they reflected sound practice. These were not stupid people. Each one had undeniable talent and yet at some point in their careers, they joined The Society of the Dead Hand. Service was far down on their list and "urgent" was not in their vocabulary.
Nice folks, but think long and hard before giving them more power.
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