Boink was kind enough to direct to my attention to this panic stricken anti-leak memo (pdf hotlinked download) that's being sent to all federal agencies. I recommend reading a few pages. It's an exhaustive set of leak prevention guidelines and passive aggressive "questions" that are designed to be taken as guidelines. My favorite part is this:
Do you use psychiatrist and sociologist to measure:• Relative happiness as a means to gauge trustworthiness?• Despondence and grumpiness as a means to gauge waning trustworthiness?
Mood is of course never a measure of trustworthiness. The most dour people can be the most steadfast. The chirpy, chipper, hail fellow well met types can be readying the knife. That said, I'm confident the über-pwog managers can find psychiatrists and sociologists so lacking in integrity that they'd be willing to administer the desired tests.
The results, if they carry this out, would be completely worthless. They'd wind up firing loyal workers and entrenching skilled actors. They'd create a reign of grinning, glad-handing terror in the agencies. It's amusing to contemplate. Take it a step further and include infantilizing morale boosters; the hokey-pokey, perhaps.
The memo as I said is exhaustive. There are hundreds of bases to cover. The author, an ass-covering sycophant, went beyond obsessiveness. It's not humanly possible to follow more than a few of the guidelines. The agencies would shut down if they tried. They'd be doing nothing but policing and entrapping themselves, administering "nudges" and performing happiness witch hunts.
I have no animosity to the majority of civil servants. There's is a thankless job most of the time, and most of them do valuable work. They're in the cross hairs (an unfortunate metaphor, but there it is) for wage reductions, job loss and astroturfed populist hatred. It's psychopathic to add this crackpot regimen to their lot—which is why I believe the ass-covering sycophantic author will be rewarded. He's mastered the corporate dream of total personnel awareness.
I hope the program flops. There's no good can come of harassing the toilers in the bureaucratic salt mines.
Comments (2)
"It's not humanly possible to follow more than a few of the guidelines. The agencies would shut down if they tried."
It's my sincere hope that they certainly give it their best shot. Getting the beast to eat itself - or at the very least, to tie itself in knots for a while as it chases itself - is part of the whole point of Wikileaks.
Posted by Christopher M | January 9, 2011 3:13 PM
Posted on January 9, 2011 15:13
Excellent essay. Thanks, Christopher.
From what I've seen of institutional meltdown, the subalterns keep the beast going long after the circulation has stopped reaching the head. I think we've been there for a while. The clerks and the oddsbodies are accustomed to getting things done in spite of the bosses. I reckon the micro-managerial program will by and large be ignored.
But, yes I suppose a knotted, autophagic beast could be a good thing.
Posted by Al Schumann | January 9, 2011 5:26 PM
Posted on January 9, 2011 17:26