French Bureaucrats Are Like American Bureaucrats

Words of experience from Dirk Beauregarde:

"The problem comes from our new boss. Like animals marking their territory as only animals know how, our new big chief is busy reorganising his new "kingdom" by changing acronyms and getting all his staff to play musical offices. Only a question of time before the new headman starts to come up with ideas - I believe they are called initiatives -

Initiatves are generally old ideas that get rediscovered when a new boss open the bottom draw on his desk and finds files crammed with "ideas". These ideas have been consigned to the bottom draw[er] because they were essentially bad ideas, but the new boss will get them out, dust them down, set up a commiittee to look at the idea and how it can be implemented. After the committee has held endless meetings and rehashed the unworkable idea into words of several syllables, the old idea becomes a new initiative. We are bound to follow the new "policy" and thus are asked to attend hours and hours of training sessions, given by people who don't understand the new initiative themselves.

Of course, nothing works, or if it does work, it is because we all ignore the initiatve and do things the old way. No matter, things are working and the credit is thus given to the boss and his new idea.