Process is the act of taking a simple task and making it complicated. Earlier today I spent an hour and a bit sitting in a bank office to change the banking of an organization I am involved with. My simple brain thought going into this that it would be a simple process. Move X to Y, and we’re done. No. Instead there was over an hour filling out forms, presenting documents, and other whatnots, all to move the contents of X into Y. Good thing I, and the others involved, had time to dedicate to this simple – but not simple – banking task. Process.
This week has felt like process (not progress.) Simple tasks became onerous, complex things. All I wanted to do was go from Point A to Point B. A lot of the process (again, not progress) is work that I had to do, unpaid, while another person behind a desk – who is well paid – pushed paper and buttons. As I drove back from the bank my mind wondered how many jobs in the banking field are justified in the name of process? If we eliminated a lot of process, would those people still have jobs? Not just banking, but in other industries and government. How many needless jobs are filled with people needlessly because of process? And what would happen if we eliminated these?
The answer is simple, the collapse of the western world and its bureaucratic masses. This is why, when politicians say they’re going to “trim the fat” of bureaucracy, more bureaucracy is created. Where I live, the number of municipalities were cut in half 25 years ago through amalgamations. The promise of bigger municipalities meant less people to run them. Instead, bureaucracy has quadrupled. My ability to pay taxes has not, but they have.
Corporations are the same – except everyone below the top office is expendable and they will cut. Governments are run by middle managers who won’t cut their own people. The frustration if you are not one of these two groups, you pay. I paid today in time. That hour of time spent could have been spent doing a number of other things. I also paid because the organization’s bank fees will inevitably increase but cover fewer things. Thus the way of the world.
Three things:
Something to read – https://thepracticalpsych.com/blog/grass-is-greener-on-other-side – A question I always ask is “Is the grass greener on the other side?” It turns out, not really.
Something to listen to – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU7hz1VVjvw – In high school, a friend got me into listening to Joe Satriani
Something to watch – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIsN0kiL9fI – I like old books. I like the feel of an old book, the smell, the sound it makes when you open it. This 10 minute video shows how one woman restores old books. It’s interesting to see how much craftsmanship is involved.
Last word – “The best advice I’ve ever received is, ‘No one else knows what they’re doing either.” – Ricky Gervais