Word: nataprobu
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Most Americans have learned to coexist with the inefficiencies and jargon of bureaucracy, accepting them with sullen resignation. Not so James Boren, president of NATAPROBU (for National Association of Professional Bureaucrats), a mischievous group organized to reform bureaucracy by lampooning it. Last week, at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., designed to demonstrate the bureaucratic characteristic of "dynamic inactivism," Boren belatedly named Sandra Summers, a Pentagon secretary, as "Miss Bureaucrat...
Boren's Three Laws sum up NATAPROBU's philosophy: 1) When in charge, ponder; 2) When in trouble, delegate; and 3) When in doubt, mumble. The organization dedicates itself to "optimize the status quo by fostering adjustive adherence to procedural abstractions and rhetorical clearances." It also promotes "feasibility studies, reviews, surveys of plans, surveys of feasibility studies and surveys of reviews." NATAPROBU's gobbledygook letters and memos, sent irregularly to offending agencies, sound alarmingly real. Victims of the Internal Revenue Service's terrifying forms, for example, will immediately recognize such splendid Borenized phrases as "quanticized investment...
Boring from Within. NATAPROBU's latest campaign is aimed at the State Department, which has decided that all outgoing telegrams be prepared on special "optical character recognition" typewriters. At the moment, only three such typewriters exist at State, and only a few operators have mastered the system's intricacies. That provides Boren with a target that seems almost too good to be true. NATAPROBU's chief executive officer, president and chairman of the board knows bureaucracy well: he struggled for seven years as a middle-level official in the Agency for International Development (AID) a renowned citadel...
Channel Pilot. Consider, for example, some of the questions a NATAPROBU aspirant must answer: "Can you describe the lateral communication channels you will have to establish to perform your role in the organization?" Or this: "In like manner, can you describe the vertical channels? Can you identify and describe the role relationships of the organizational units astride the communication channels you have identified?" To the novice, a simple yes or no answer would seem to be enough. According to NATAPROBU's Guidelines for Evaluation, however, any coherent replies immediately relegate the applicant to the "Failure to Meet Requirements...
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