Word: parkinson
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...PARKINSON'S LAW (113 pp.)−C. Northcote Parkinson−Houghton Mifflin...
...flight from the pound, the British imagination has turned wryly theoretical. From Stephen Potter issued the famed laws of lifemanship. Now, from an unlikely enclave of Empire known as the Raffles Chair of History at the University of Malaya in Singapore, Professor C. (for Cyril) Northcote Parkinson has produced a combination of Potter and the U.S.'s own William H. (The Organization Man) Whyte. Professor Parkinson's book is a delightfully unprofessorial diagnosis of that widespread 20th century malady−galloping orgmanship...
Stripped of its complex algebraic formulas, Parkinson's Law is this: the staff of any administrative department increases annually by 5%-6% "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done." Not one to proclaim dogma without data, Author Parkinson presents the strange case of the British Admiralty. Between 1914 and 1928, the capital ships of the British navy declined from 62 to 20, the officers and men of the fleet dropped from 146,000 to 100,000, yet Admiralty officials increased nearly 80% from 2,000 to 3,569. So absolute...
...Memo-Passer. Parkinson offers two reasons for the phenomenon: 1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals"; 2) "Officials make work for each other." Is Official A's workload making him miss the commuter's special? He will not split his functions with B, a potential rival. Instead he will create two subordinates, C and D who in a relatively short time will also accrete two subordinates apiece. Although soon seven men will do the work formerly done by one, none will be idle, for "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion...
Died. Leo ("Lindy") Lindemann, 69, short, hustling founder of Broadway's fabled Lindy's restaurant; of Parkinson's disease; in Manhattan. Berlin-bred son of a linen peddler, Lindy came to the U.S. at 25, worked as bus boy and waiter. In 1921 he unveiled the first Lindy's just south of 50th Street. Soon his menu featuring gefüllte fish, blintzes and super-cheesecake, attracted the famed and ill-famed heroes of Broadway's big-spending '20s, and Lindy's became the prototype of Damon Runyon's "Mindy...