Red Tape Will Kill Us All

I was just outside smoking with my boss and an analogy emerged.

To understand, I must tell you that my company was bought out last year by a bigger company who were one of our vendors. I expected all kinds of annoying changes with the merger, but it went rather smoothly. It wasn't until recently that the bubbles started to rise to the surface.

The bureacratic bullshit is now flying everywhere. The shit has hit the proverbial fan, and it's getting messy. It seems that the parent company isn't fully able to deal with all of the issues that we're having, so they're reverting to old methods instead of following through on new ideas. Annoying. Very, very annoying, in fact.

They're making our jobs as complicated as they can while asking that we incur as little overtime as humanly possible. Of course, this new red tape could be easily dealt with if we were properly staffed, but clerically speaking, we are the most understaffed office in the company.

Today when I heard about the newest stupid new procedure, it reminded me of another bureaucratic problem that recently came to light.

After 9/11, the Bush administration formed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a way to deal with threats to national security that exist within the country. Namely terrorists. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) already existed (formed in 1979 by an executive order by President Jimmy Carter) and was quickly swallowed up by the DHS. According to their website, FEMA's mission is "to lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters with a vision of "A Nation Prepared."

So, while it somewhat makes sense for FEMA to be a part of the DHS, it seems to be counter-productive to me. Being a part of DHS means even more extensive red tape and bureaucracy than what FEMA was previously involved in.

All that extra red tape meant that when well-meaning people tried to deliver much-needed supplies to the Gulf Coast, they were turned away because they didn't have what the FEMA employees referred to as a 'tasker number'. I looked this up on Google, and failed to find any definitive information beyond it being a number that catalogs and identifies something governmental. It seems to be a term commonly used in the military.

When FEMA didn't have the necessary equipment and supplies in place before all the flooding, there were others willing to donate what was needed (including much-needed helicopters), and FEMA could not accept any of it until the proper paperwork was filled out and submitted. Can you believe that?

Honestly, I don't know what FEMA's response or strategy would've been previous to the merger with DHS. But I have a feeling that if the agency wasn't required to go through so much paperwork to get anything done, the response time would've been much faster. Also, having a director who has experience in disaster response instead of being just another big Bush campaign supporter probably would've helped. Shit, I think I have more common sense in how to deal with a disaster/emergency than Michael Brown. Maybe that's why he resigned today. Wanna know what post he held before he was named as the director of FEMA? "Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado. " That comes from an article in the Boston Herald from September 3rd, and you can read it in it's entirety right here.

Did you read the article? Good, okay, now think about it...this nation is run by a man who actually felt it was appropriate to give Michael Brown the task of heading a federal emergency agency. The only emergency Michael Brown is capable of dealing with is cheating at a horse show. That's like asking a farmer to be the director of housing and urban development, as long as the farmer gives the president lots of money for his election campaign.

Obviously, I've digressed from my original argument. Suck it, I don't care.