[Publib] Friday readers/reader's/readers' advisory

[Backwage at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/12/2006 8:47:09 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
kgs at bluehighways.com writes:

"Most of  management theory is inane,
> writes our correspondent, the founder of a  consulting firm.  If you want
> to succeed in business (note: or  libraries--my comment), don't get an
> M.B.A.  Study philosophy  instead."


I have taken a look at the thing they call Business Management and found it  
has all the content of a spent balloon.  One fine example:  back when  I was 
working for the U.S. Department of Labor, they had some idiot devise a  program 
wherein we would all get together in Quality Groups and examine our  
workplace and its operations.  We did this every week.  It took twenty  percent of our 
investigation time.  We sat around and drew diagrams,  mostly, and printed 
them out for distribution.  It was concluded by our  management guru that we 
must work smarter:  this meant abandoning  more difficult cases, the ones with a 
lot of cheated workers, in favor of the  easier ones, which took less time.  
After a year of this idiocy, the agency  had reduced its case clearance and 
back wage totals by a third.  They  simply wrote off people's complaints or sent 
them elsewhere.  Meanwhile,  having obtained his MBA, our management 
consultant applied for a  doctorate--whose magnificent thesis involved our own agency.  
It was later  discovered that this gent had borrowed the entire program from 
somewhere else,  piecemeal.  After a few months of declining morale and other 
problems, the  whole thing was quietly abandoned.  Now you can't find anybody 
who admits  to having supported the project, or hiring the consultant.  He has 
been  figuratively airbrushed from the collective memory.  I imagine he's 
working  his magic somewhere else.
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