The Crazy Games Bureaucrats Play | Calvinball

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Much of the bureaucratic wrangling at headquarters boils down to a simple backyard game of Calvinball where players constantly introduce & change rules to suit their own ends. Once you understand this, dealing with the constant shifts becomes much easier.

#bureaucracy #militarylife #workplacehumor

Note: The views expressed in this video are the presenter's and do not represent the policy or guidance of the Department of Defense or its subordinate elements.

[justinfreeman]

I also enjoy when there's 1 team who says they are the only one that does something. Then you find there are 2 others with the same duties assigned. You can bounce between them to try to get to "yes" on the same project, but they'll also try to sabotage each other because "only we are supposed to do that"... When the paperwork (often different portions of the same docs for the same big org) supports all of them having that job.

[RoyatAvalonFarms]

I recall by the time i was a late 1LT or early CPT, that i was observing how "regulations" werent as "rigid" as so many people would rely on when they would envoke some regulation as a justification for why something or another had to be done a certain way. I had seen a few changes of Chiefs of Staff by then and for the same "thing" different chiefs would envoke a different regulation or policy to justify why they were doing the same topic differently as another COL. It had been confusing until i discovered the unwritten and untrained maxim that for every regulation there is another regulation which contridicts the first one. And as a senior leader, you just had to pick which one you wanted to use to justify what you wanted.

Later on, as a LTC in a 2 star command and working ICW TRADOC, i often envoked precidence from another organization or past history to justify some policy or way of doing business, especially when others around me would exclaim in some way that we could NOT do something, or that it hadnt been done before. It seems there are only a few things in the military which are very rigid, based in law or something. I learned that much of it was flexible and generally prefered it that way, as long as we had leaders with good ethics.

I like this Calvinball, with the exception of the part where youre not allowed to ever repeat a game the same way. If it works, then repeat it 😉

[RoyatAvalonFarms]

I loved reading Calvin and Hobbes from years ago, though i havent even seen it for probably 30 years now. But i dont recall the Calvinball sketches. Great analogy to a lot of things in the Army.