The bridge operator

Once upon a time there was a bridge operator in a small town. Every day he could be found near the bridge making sure that both traffic as well as the boats could pass. When the bridge needed maintenance, or when something went wrong, the operator would walk down the street to a local mechanic and ask for help. They usually performed maintenance on the bridge every month (oiling the mechanism and such). When that happened the bridge operator would fill out a form, send it to city hall and they took care of the payment.

Then one day someone at city hall wondered what the operator was doing all day and if his work could be better optimized. So soon afterwards a public servant was tasked with the supervision of the bridge operator. Instead of walking to the local mechanic the operator would now sent in a request for help to city hall.

Unfortunately the public servant didn't have the authority to make decisions on his own. So what if certain expenses needed approval? It was quickly decided that a manager should be appointed who did have the authority to approve those expenses.

But when the mechanic asked for help with technical maintenance the manager noticed that he didn't have enough expertise on that. So another manager was appointed and charged with supervising the technical aspects of operating the bridge.

Unfortunately this created a new problem: 2 managers couldn't report to upper management at the same time. So a director was appointed to schedule meetings with the bridge managers and to report to upper management. Of course a secretary was also appointed to make sure that the director could keep track of all his appointments.

Finally everything was as it should be and this worked flawlessly for the first 6 months.

Then, during a staff meeting of upper management, it got noticed that the overhead costs of bridge operations had drastically increased! Something really needed to be done here.

And so city hall decided to fire the bridge operator.

The end

Loves it! Especially this:

A happily never after. The best.

Call this bureaucracy in a nutshell

a good example of trickle down economics

Laughed, because funny.

Then cried, because true.

:(

Well-written, though!

jup, that's what we call "civilization" and "efficiency"

That's interesting.

Hey, want to put this in my bookstore? We could use some political humor in the store. Also, lol, this is pretty accurate.