Dealing with Bureaucracies--Lines

In dealing with its public, a bureaucracy has to connect to its customers, which usually means setting up a sequence to deal with them and, sometimes, fitting them into service categories. Today I experienced some variations on this:

• Visited the VA DMV to renew my driver's license. In their system, you first line up to reach an information window, where the clerk assesses your situation and fits you into the bureaucratic cubbyhole (license renewal, vehicle registration, id card, more documents needed, interpreter needed), tells you what to fill out and gives you a code number. An automated PA announcement system calls out the code numbers to go to the various windows. This morning there was maybe a 15-minute wait. So I sat waiting for the call and fussing to myself over whether someone who arrived after me was being served before you. I couldn't tell, because there were different number sequences according to the type of transaction. It would seem the different clerks specialized in different transactions. [I know I should have faith in the system and I really do, but it is a weakness. The strength, at least this morning, is that people were informed quickly of where they fit--they didn't spend 20 minutes waiting for a clerk only to find they needed more information.]
• Later I visited the post office. You took a number from the machine and waited for your number to be called. There was only the one sequence, meaning every clerk had to be able There they had a number system, just like my barbershop, where every clerk could handle most any transaction. As with the barbershop, you could tell your place in line was safe.
• Finally I hit the Safeway. You get your groceries, pick the checkout line--express or regular--and wait in line.
  

From the Mouths of Waiters

Frank Bruni, the NYTimes restaurant critic, tries waiting tables for a week and describes the result in My Week as a Waiter. In doing so he collects wisdom from the waiters (who may qualify as bureaucrats, I'll have to think about it):

"'It's amazing,' Bryan tells me, 'how unadventurous people are....'"[in rejecting specials]

"Some people are interested in having the experience of being disappointed," Tina says.... [setting expectations too high]

"Jess tells me that enthusiasm is more important than definitive knowledge, that many diners simply want a server to help them get excited about something.

"You've got to fake it until you make it," she says...."

"Once again I try to tackle an entire section, seven tables in all. Dave is my minder. He tells me to make clear to diners that they need to be patient.

"If you don't control the dynamic, they will," he says...."

Investing Time

Blake Gopnik, the Washington Post art critic, went to various galleries/museums and looked at art, not special exhibits, just the regular stuff. It's interesting. One article suggests the difference between an amateur and a professional. Tuesday::

"The time the average museum-goer spends looking at a work of art, as clocked one morning at the Hirshhorn: Well under 10 seconds. [actually, when I go to the museum I usually spend between 30 seconds and a minute, covering the usual 60-100 piece exhibition in about an hour. ]

On the second day of my week, I decided to see what it would feel like to push the experience of a single picture as far as it could go."

He goes to see a picture that consists only of color stripes, and spends 2 hours looking at it. 2 hours!! But then, he'd spend a minute on something concerning bureaucracy that could keep me going an hour. Different strokes.

What Makes a Citizen?

Edward Rothstein has a neat article on the tests different countries give to immigrants apiring to become citizens--Refining the Tests That Confer Citizenship.

Questions include: "Where does Father Christmas come from? How old do you have to be to buy a lottery ticket? If your adult son declares he's a homosexual, what do you do? If a film or a book insults your religious feelings, what is your reaction? Why are aboriginal peoples seeking self-government? Who has the power to declare war?"

Raises questions of what we hope to achieve by the tests. Would life experiences be a substitute? (Like, if the immigrant provided x ticket stubs from baseball games, or had watched "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", or ??)

Richard Hatch and IRS Tax Systems

I've blogged previously on Richard Hatch's ("Survivor") tax evasion problem. The Times has an update here: A New Reality for First 'Survivor' Winner: Tax Evasion Trial .

Hatch first agreed to a bargain, then backed out and went to trial. From the article he seems not to be doing well, at least not in the reporter's opinion.

"Standing in the witness box for nearly five hours, frequently gesturing and looking at the jury, Mr. Hatch sought to portray his tax situation as complicated and confusing, especially for someone grappling with instant fame and stresses involving his adopted son."

At least the defense attorney doesn't seem to be attacking the IRS.

Tripping Up on Trips: Judges Love Junkets as Much as Tom DeLay Does - New York Times

Dorothy Samuels on the NYTimes editorial page criticizes judges for going on junkets (called "seminars" sponsored by organizations with an ideological or financial interest in judicial decisons) --Tripping Up on Trips: Judges Love Junkets as Much as Tom DeLay Does . But she includes this question:

"I've been writing about the foibles of powerful public officials for more years than I care to reveal without a subpoena, and I still don't get it: why would someone risk his or her reputation and career for a lobbyist-bestowed freebie like a vacation at a deluxe resort?

Is it just plain old greed - the irresistible lure of bathrooms with heated towels, outstanding golf and tennis, and ski valets who will warm your boots on a cold day and deliver them right to your door? Is the tendency to sponge inappropriately off rich special interests an inherited trait, the product of some yet to be mapped junket gene? Or is it environmental, a sad reflection of the social and political culture?"

My guess is it's none of the above, at least not for most people. It's just very seductive to have people do for you, whether it's your mother when you're sick in bed and out of school, your secretary, your employee, or a supposed friend. Your ego gets charged up when you're the center of attention, no longer the nerd wallflower at the dance ignored by the girls clustered around the jocks, but the center of all eyes. It's easy to come to feel you deserve the attention. It's your brains and your beauty that explains the attention, not any possibility that others would benefit from pleasing you. And it's addictive, as all pleasure is addictive. Ms. Samuels no doubt felt similarly when she first had her name attached to her writing.

Faceless Bureaucrat Is Wrong!!

Although I beat to death the idea that we don't do things right the first time, Kevin Drum at The Washington Monthly provides an opposing view:

"Jon Cohn returns to the Medicare prescription drug debacle with a simple question: are the kinds of problems we're seeing just the inevitable startup bugs you get with any big new government program? He takes a look back at the start of Medicare itself to get the answer:

So what happened on the day that this complex program was implemented? Thousands of senior citizens simply went to the hospital and got the health care they needed. 'There were no crises that I remember,' says Yale University political scientist Theodore Marmor, who worked in the office overseeing Medicare implementation and went on to write The Politics of Medicare, the program's definitive history. Newspaper accounts from the '60s back him up. Under the headline 'medicare takes over easily,' a Post writer described the program's first day as 'a smooth transition, undramatic as a bed change.' Three weeks later, the Times affirmed that 'medicare's start has been smooth.'"

What can I say--LBJ's bureaucrats were better than modern day ones.

Public/Private Partnerships--Bureaucratically Problematic

Following on yesterday's post about the problems of implementing the Medicare Part D plan, Jacob Weisberg has an interesting article, Drug Addled - Why Bush's prescription plan is such a fiasco, in Slate. He observes that programs that try to partner public and private entities are more complex. And he makes the parallel with the Clinton health care plan in 1994. Recommended reading.

First Time Problems or Misdesigned Program

Today's Post has an article describing reactions to the problems in the implementation of the new Medicare drug insurance plan (Part D). HHS Secretary Leavitt says:

"'Since this is a new program, some people may experience a problem the first time they go to get their medicines, but we're confident that after you use it once, things are going to go more smoothly,' he said. 'If you are one of those seniors experiencing problems, our message is don't leave the pharmacy without your drugs.'"

Remember my Harshaw Rule 1.

It's possible that the program is misconceived and impossible to administer well through the congeries of state and private organizations that must cooperate. I certainly don't envy the HHS bureaucrats. But it's also possible that with time and experience people will adjust their behavior and make it work. After all, that's how our present health care system has evolved, though some may quarrel with the idea that it works.

Bureaucracy in Body Armor

Re my blog on Mr. Bremer, Andrew Exum had an op-ed in the Times that leads off:

THIS week Senator Hillary Clinton, citing a secret Pentagon report that suggested some marines killed in Iraq might have survived had they been wearing more body armor, became the latest in a long line of politicians to castigate the Pentagon for a supposed failure to adequately protect our fighting men and women. Well-intentioned as the senator might be, the body-armor issue, like so many in war, is just not that simple.

The point he goes on to make is that troops need mobility and endurance, particularly in 120 degree heat. So each added pound of armor comes at the cost of less speed, less staying power. Efforts in the press (including a piece on Lehrer PBS Wed. night) to charge the administration with not protecting troops are overly simplified.

How does this tie with Bremer's bureaucratic rules on procurement--the same style of thinking applies in both. You focus on one thing (preventing fraud, preventing lethal shots from the side), propose a solution (more rules, more armor) and lose some ability to achieve your larger objective.

Update: Watched "Black Hawk Down". (I'd read the book before, but just got around to the movie.) When the Rangers loaded up for the raid, the movie shows them leaving behind some armor and other equipment they don't think they'll need.