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Top U.S. Scientific Misconduct Official Quits In Frustration With Bureaucracy
sandbagger writes "The director of the U.S. government office that monitors scientific misconduct in biomedical research has resigned after 2 years out of frustration with the 'remarkably dysfunctional' federal bureaucracy. Officials at the Office of Scientific Integrity spent 'exorbitant amounts of time' in meetings and generating data and reports to make their divisions look productive, David Wright writes. He huge amount of time he spent trying to get things done made much of his time at ORI 'the very worst job I have ever had.'"
and its a large corporation in the private sector. Its hard for very large organizations to be efficient.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
The sickness is endemic, and not just in government either; pretty much all big business suffers from this once it reaches critical mass. Basically, when you have a hierarchy of people who are so separated by degrees of management tier that the bulk of them no longer care about the actual stated goal or task of the organization and don't interact socially or even actually know anyone high enough up in the organization who does, and then you let them self-schedule their time in business meetings, every business meeting will become an elaborate excuse to not do any work. The meetings themselves look like work from a distance though, so this type of dysfunctional situation can persist for decades without anyone who cares actually noticing.
In a system where your rewards are based on the look of powerpoint presentations that are delivered to directors, you end up spending all your time optimizing the data on the slides. The same principle is applied all over the place, in almost every human endeavor. Using the wrong measure of progress means we waste time and effort. It also has a side effect of making everyone miserable, like the guy in this story. See health care, prison system, etc.
By the way, this isn't a problem unique to the government. His gripes sound very similar to my reality. I work in a large aerospace company.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
the micromanaging is there due to the media
no one is perfect and sometimes something happens where the media picks up on it, turns it into a major issue and starts calling for people in the government who made the decision to be fired.
government workers know this and so they CYA everything they do down to the exact letter of the law or regulation
It's not just the media. It's also Congress. Any member of Congress could decide to turn your group into a political football at any time. This is especially likely if you have spent money on something that is easy to mock.
The problem is that "something that is easy to mock" can be fruit fly research or volcano monitoring. So basically any time you do your job, it could have negative political consequences. The only solution is to not do your job....