[Publib] Public servants, abuse, irony, et.

[John]

O.K., I forget every now and then that there are people who do not know, understand, or care to acknowledge my particular sense of humor...which, by the way, has kept me from going CRAZY for years (I am convinced).  THE DEMONICS OF BUREAUCRACY was published in 1965, per the info I could find, and seems to be of a rather more scholarly nature than your latest right- or left-wing rant.

My father was the State Archivist of Nebraska, Kansas, and Associate Director of the KS State Historical Society for a total of, oh, 38 years before he retired.  He was a bureaucrat who had to take orders from bureaucrats.  He know perfectly well what kind of bureaucracy it was that a) paid his salary, and b) required him to do officially weird and seemingly pointless things from time to time.  There have been teachers for 100+ years in my family.  I think--I could be wrong, but maybe my signature line, et al., isn't clear enough--it is obvious that I am not retired, I *am* working in/for a governmental entity, and so I am a public servant, too.  Being in a district library isn't quite as bureaucratic as being in a municipal library--where I have also been--but bureaucracy simply *is*.  Notice that I am not retired, I like my job (most of the time), I have always loved libraries, and there certainly *are* lots of devoted public servants.

And some are not devoted, but rise to the level of their incompetence and stay there.  So it goes, so it probably always will go.  Again--I think I repeat myself--I thought it was IRONIC that THE DEMONICS OF BUREAUCRACY was in the place where it was.  Just the "is-ness" of it all was/is ironic.

O.K., I was going to report on the child dressed as a toilet seat (and very convincingly, too) who came trick-or-treating to our door last night--open the stool lid, drop in the candy--but now I am feeling bureaucratically crabby, and am going to go give some of my staff members a few pointless assignment.

(Er, my tongue was in my cheek just then.)

John D. Richmond, Director
Alpha Park Public Library District
3527 So. Airport Road
Bartonville, IL 61607
Ph: (309) 697-3822, ext. 12
Fax: (309) 697-9681
E-mail: jrichmond at alphapark.org
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"To do two things at once is to do neither." -- Publilius Syrus, 1st century B.C.