Friday, April 18, 2008

Onside rules

My deep appreciation of bureaucracy is , to any who read this blog, well known.

Especially when in complement to grants that seem more designed to put money in the pockets of those tasked to dole 'em out than actually getting anything worthwhile to the beneficiary.

So when a chicken comes home to roost, especially on a Friday afternoon, I am soooo onside already.

However, when it kicks off 'You are required to take part in the programme evaluation ...' I feel less than inclined to jump to it. And as it didn't come registered, I feel I might just stick it where de sun don' shine until asked again. Maybe more pleasantly ('We'd appreciate your help with... as agreed when the award was made...'). But that, I doubt.

What really gets me is the majority of the form is stuff they have already had from me, scores of times. And almost none has any bearing on the key aim as suggested by the line 'it is important that we continue to highlight the positive impact [the programmes] have on local companies.'

How pointless is that?

There's no opportunity to give any qualitative analysis, so they are simply designed to get in ticked box form what they want to hear to justify their existence.

So many things these days seem to operate on this idiotic basis. Surveys that take as gospel the word of a person saying they don't smack their kid whilst recycling 110%. Job references that forget that a glowing positive might not just mean they're keen to pass on a deadweight, or a negative might mean a good candidate has fallen foul of an idiot boss. Or the 101 times that an honest reply means censure where lying through your teeth gives a clear pass.

These things are totally self-serving, and offer no value to the recipients or those who pay for all this. The only thing they do is keep make-weights in fruitless nirvana.

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