রবিবার, ৩ জুলাই, ২০১৬

Let's Form A Committee

commercial snow removal massachusetts

"Let's form a committee!" When you hear these words during a public meeting, a warning light should start flashing, for more often than not Parkinson's law may be coming into play. One of the many precepts from this law states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. It was first articulated by C.commercial snow removal massachusetts , a British scholar, in the book "Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress," (commercial snow removal massachusetts , 1958). Based on extensive experience in the British Civil Service system, his scientific observations noted, among other things, that as the British empire declined, the number of employees at the colonial office increased. Parkinson claimed this was caused by two forces: One, officials want to multiply subordinates, not rivals; and two, officials make work for each other.




Among many other things, his law is also used to refer to a derivative of the original law relating to computers; namely, data expands to fill the space available for storage (see Moore's Law).

Verification of this law is most readily found in government where bureaucrats usually want subordinates, but not competitors, to help with overwork. In the field of public administration in the United States, it has been widely observed that work tends to increase in importance and complexity in direct proportion with the time to be spent. Politicians and, frequently, taxpayers (the latter with at least an occasional sense of doubt) have assumed that an increased number of civil servants must be the result of an increased amount of work to be performed.

Here is an example, widely used by other writers, of how it works. Let's assume an individual contributor (for example, one who is part of the overhead structure) finds herself overworked. For this real or imagined overwork situation, there are at least three solutions. First, she can simply quit, but this is not a likely outcome given the loss of relatively generous public sector benefits. Secondly, she might request that the work be divided with another employee, but this creates an unwanted rival for promotion. Or thirdly, she might ask for the assistance of two subordinates thus adding to her importance. Assuming the third choice is the one taken, and it usually is, one can further assume that sooner or later one of these two subordinates will also complain about overwork thus creating another round of employment. If you do the math, seven officials will eventually end up doing the work that one did before. To make matters even worse, the two subordinates may be nepotistic hires who in turn may hire other relatives or friends. This is precisely why there are those who are such staunch proponents of doing more with less.

I recently heard one local selectman state that both the "Share the Road" signs (i.e., share with bicycles) and promoted by the ever-so-righteous Rotarians, and the commercial snow removal massachusetts  of two major rotaries (i.e.,roundabouts) on a local arterial parkway are important issues. The implication was that both were of equal importance. Surely he was not serious.....but he was! The sign issue should not even have been on the table. It was a classic example of where the amount of time given to an issue is so far out of proportion to its importance, it makes one wobble. In this connection, Parkinson not surprisingly laid down a dynamic that said groups spend time on subjects in inverse proportion to the importance of the subject. The issue of rotaries on the aforementioned parkway is indeed important but hopefully will not lead to a study committee which may in turn lead to subcommittees. Instead, the selectmen need to resolve this. Again, warning lights are beginning to flash, though ever so dimly.



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