Humorous Bureaucracy Quotes

A totally nondenominational prayer: Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that I be forgiven for anything I may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness.  Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which I may be eligible after the destruction of my body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more time, or of going one more round with a hostile or (much worse) indifferent audience. I first became involved with the Czech opposition in 1968 when it was an intoxicating and celebrated cause. Then, during the depressing 1970s and 1980s I was a member of a routine committee that tried with limited success to help the reduced forces of Czech dissent to stay nourished (and published). The most pregnant moment of that commitment was one that I managed to miss at the time: I passed an afternoon with Zdenek Mlynar, exiled former secretary of the Czech Communist Party, who in the bleak early 1950s in Moscow had formed a friendship with a young Russian militant with an evident sense of irony named Mikhail Sergeyevitch Gorbachev. In 1988 I was arrested in Prague for attending a meeting of one of Vaclav Havel's 'Charter 77' committees. That outwardly exciting experience was interesting precisely because of its almost Zen-like tedium. I had gone to Prague determined to be the first visiting writer not to make use of the name Franz Kafka, but the numbing bureaucracy got the better of me. When I asked why I was being detained, I was told that I had no need to know the reason! Totalitarianism is itself a cliché (as well as a tundra of pulverizing boredom) and it forced the cliché upon me in turn. I did have to mention Kafka in my eventual story. The regime fell not very much later, as I had slightly foreseen in that same piece that it would. (I had happened to notice that the young Czechs arrested with us were not at all frightened by the police, as their older mentors had been and still were, and also that the police themselves were almost fatigued by their job. This was totalitarianism practically yawning itself to death.) A couple of years after that I was overcome to be invited to an official reception in Prague, to thank those who had been consistent friends through the stultifying years of what 'The Party' had so perfectly termed 'normalization.' As with my tiny moment with Nelson Mandela, a whole historic stretch of nothingness and depression, combined with the long and deep insult of having to be pushed around by boring and mediocre people, could be at least partially canceled and annealed by one flash of humor and charm and generosity.

While yes we can both agree the sudden recovery of this footage smells not a little, and that we appear to be bits of tinfoil-on-string to some malevolent government kitten, yes yes yes but, Borlu, however they've come by this evidence, this is the correct decision.

At one point I learned that when I'd told them my college coursework in Arabic might make me a good intelligence officer, they had recorded that my minor at Harvard had been in aerobics.

Alfred," Merryweather said. "OIPEP is the only organization of its kind in the world, with practically unlimited resources and an intelligence network that spans every country in the planet. We shall do what any powerful, multinational bureaucracy would do in such a crisis. We shall hold a meeting!

All such questions as, for instance,of the cause of failure of crops, of the adherence of certain tribes to their ancient belief, etc.--questions which, but for the convenient intervention of the official machine are not, and cannot be solved for ages--received full, unhesitating solution.

It popped up on my Outlook calendar, flagged in red like an inflamed pimple full of infected bureaucratic pus... I've been trying desperately to get it shifted, but no, it is stuck like a king-sized dildo in a guinea pig.

Let’s form a committee tasked with exploring why committees are so ineffective. Then we’ll stand-back and watch it argue and self-destruct.

The Creed for the Sociopathic Obsessive Compulsive (Peter's Laws) 1. If anything can go wrong, Fix it!!! (To hell with Murphy!!) 2. When given a choice - Take Both!! 3. Multiple projects lead to multiple successes. 4. Start at the top, then work your way up. 5. Do it by the book... but be the author! 6. When forced to compromise, ask for more. 7. If you can't beat them, join them, then beat them. 8. If it's worth doing, it's got to be done right now. 9. If you can't win, change the rules. 10. If you can't change the rules, then ignore them. 11. Perfection is not optional. 12. When faced without a challenge, make one. 13. "No" simply means begin again at one level higher. 14. Don't walk when you can run. 15. Bureaucracy is a challenge to be conquered with a righteous attitude, a tolerance for stupidity, and a bulldozer when necessary. 16. When in doubt: THINK! 17. Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing. 18. The squeaky wheel gets replaced. 19. The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live. 20. The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself!!

Bureaucracy is the distracted persons worst enemy. Unfortunately, the winner is mostly bureaucracy

If there were a ruin associated with Vlad Dracula near Oradea, the Rumanian Tourist Bureau would have been exploiting it already. Then he found a notation in an archeological guide that near the border—near Oradea but in Transylvania—was a site designated by the Rumanian government as a historical edifice not open to tourists. The exact words, expressed with the unintentional humor so characteristic of communist bureaucracies, were that the site was an "unauthorized ruin.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, then bureaucracy is a Challenger tank.

...Salâhiyetli zat, belediye reisini, - Tabiî... diye tasdik etti. Yalnız her şeyi paraya bağlamamalıdır.İnsan iradesi daima maddî şartları yener... Sözüne devam etsin diye ne kadar dua ettim. Bunun sırrını bir kere öğrenseydim her şey halledilecekti. Fakat devam etmedi. Şüphesiz bu mühim işin usullerini kendimizin bulmasını istiyordu. Belediye reisinin bu hususa hiçbir itirazı yoktu. Binaenaleyh, gerçeği bu olmakla beraber, çünkü o da maddî şartları sadece iradesiyle yenmişe benziyordu, yeni kurulmuş bir müessesede, bilhassa bu kadar masraflı bir işin büsbütün de parasız yapılamayacağını, yapılsa bile bu iş için sarf edilecek iradenin çok pahalıya mal olacağını en münasip dille, yani karşısındakinin fikrini daima doğru bula bula tekrar hatırlatmağa çalıştı. İtikadımca belediye reisinin bu işte hakkı vardı. İşsizlik zamanlarımda sadece irademle geçinebilmek için, bu cevheri o kadar sarf etmiştim ki çoktan beri bende zerresi bile kalmamıştı. Ve belki de bu yüzden aylardır Halit Ayarcı'nın ayağıyla ittiği bir futbol topuna benzemiştim...

There’s just so much bureaucracy nowadays, you need permits, sanctions, your proposals signed off by numerous overseers of ethics, and then the moment you enter a careless word like genocide into the fray, the cogs of the machine start to turn very slowly indeed, I assure you.