How to Cope With Bureaucracy

One of the great challenges of the modern world is how to keep calm in the face of bureaucracy. A small film for anyone who has ever wanted to shout at the airline counter or the operator.

FURTHER READING

"Most of us grow up at the centre of a very responsive world. Parents re-organise their lives so as to accommodate the needs of their off-spring. They spend a good deal of time selecting just the right presents at birthdays and blame themselves if the gifts fail to delight. Careful account is taken of a child’s mood and physical state: if they’re tired, we’ll go home; if they’re hungry, we’ll eat… One of the ambiguous achievements of good parenting is that the child comes to assume that other people really can be alert to their needs; that our genuine requirements, properly stated, will meet with recognition and understanding."

MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE

Watch more films on CAPITALISM in our playlist:

SOCIAL MEDIA

Feel free to follow us at the links below:

CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with Reflective films

[isarahkim]

I disagree, its not an empathy issue. Its the fact that there are a MILLION better solutions, but bureaucracy is too rigid to adapt. Their reasoning, "It just the way it works".

[alessiosusi]

The real nightmare with bureaucracy is that it's still people that bring it in practice and even though it is supposed to be "mechanical" and fair, it actually isn't. Maybe it's because I'm Italian, but my experience with offices of any kind is that rules will be bent against you at any cost if you are just stranger, and on the other hand if you know someone in the office rules will be bent in your favour.

[spiltanarchy]

This video fails to address the power dynamics of bureaucracies. These are not just some inevitable inconveniences. They cause alienation from within and wreak havoc on humanity.

[mndn]

The video only seems to show the positive side of bureaucracy. Like it's all for our own good. What about all the corruption. In my country, we often need to bribe to get things done.

[hikarikimikokiyoko]

Too much bureocracy destroys the individual.
Too little allows tyranny one to another.
Bureocracy is such a hard balance...

[bsjeffrey]

favoritism, power abuses etc occur in bureaucracies. its my opinion the main purposes are to create layers of petty henchmen, keep track of the ordinary person to facilitate punishments when rules are broken and ensure payments.

[lordspoice]

"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is it's inefficiency" -Eugene McCarthy

[LetsPlayMC]

I was so looking forward to this video because of the title, and was dissapointed by the end lesson, "deal with it".

[walk.]

If you are watching this video, you are a beautiful person and have an amazing day 😊😊😊

[Carnyx_]

Wow, School of Life's new motto must be "Obey, consume, conform". Never expected such conformist propaganda from them.

[soapopera]

well, the lesson misses probably the greatest irritation of all concerning beauracracy, that it is only applied to the hoi poloi. when it comes to the more elite it will bend. Thus Mitt Romney can pay lower tax rates and his hidden assets will be ignored. Or Hillary Clinton will walk away without prosecution even though others who have done far less are serving life sentences. It is this knowledge of a double standard that enrages us when we see ourselves refuced to the status of a “commoner”, unworthy of the preferential treatment given to others.

[JimmyDThing]

Nepotism and cronyism are reduced 0 by bureaucracy. If anything, it encourages it because there is blind trust in the safeguards. At least without it, you could speak out against it. Your voice is drowned in pointing it out when it happens in bureaucracy. Thus, it happens far more.

[hamonteiro]

I can easily cope with bureaucracy when it makes sense.. but much of it is so stupid and unnecessary.
I have no problem enduring a long queue or waiting on the phone when I don't know there is an obviously better, simpler and quicker way of going through that process. What pisses me off is when people are so accustumed with the patern that they refuse to think outside of it. Bureaucracy is usually a necessary evil, but the failure to not think like a computer has nothing to do with fairness.

[aedr]

While I agree it's good to be calm in life in general, the conclusion of this video is clearly from a perspective of people who have more often than not been on the better end of the modern bureaucratic capitalist system. Although it has its benefits in terms of sometimes making organization out of potential chaos, from a critical perspective, and especially from those of us who have less power (minorities, those in poverty, the homeless, etc.) bureaucracy more often than not is the major tool of systematic oppression. This makes perfect sense when you realize that the mechanism of the systematic is in itself, some form of bureaucracy. It's this exact thing that allows for people to regularly get "illegally" discriminated against or abused, while there are mountains of red tape to climb for the people that simply don't have the resources to overcome them. This is exactly how people become disenfranchised. It's not just an "extreme" or "unfortunate" matter to move on from, because it happens all the time. People with power create the bias that drives our institutions, and they're set up this way, not because of "fairness, " but to reflect the power that the creators of those systems exude themselves. Ultimately though, I don't just want to label SoL as hegemonic, since much of your work has been good for me. But in the end, it makes too much sense that you guys would favor Weber this much. This is a direct call to inaction in a still unjust system and society.

I swear to God, I won't raise my child, I will just play him/her TSOL.

[shayanali]

When I saw this notification it reminded me of Franz Kalfa

[TheCrow]

I don't think this guy knows what the problem with bureaucracy really is... specially when money replaces the interest of the supposed good deed it's blindly having us think it's doing in a perfect world...

[MephLeo]

When bureaucrats are under scrutiny, when they account for their actions, bureaucracy is under social control and can be efficient (but never perfect) and people just need to rationalize to be able to cope with it. But when bureaucrats are free to act in the shade of corporatism, weather promoted by interest groups or by bureaucrats themselves, bureaucracy becomes not only inefficient but even hurtful to society. I can't see any way to deal with that kind of inefficient bureaucracy other than either going outright against it or playing by its rules, which means paying bribes and kickbacks. I don't want to play by rules I loathe.

[catherineg]

This seems to suggest bureaucracy provides a level playing field, which it definitely does not, some groups of people are still likely to be treated better by institutions

[TheLaughingOut]

Bureaucracy is fair, except for 5% of the time when it's not. It's not out to get you, it's just that your misfortune is the price its willing to pay. In other words, in order to achieve the equal treatment and efficiency that it pretends to achieve it's willing to walk over the minority.

Totally fair.