White Collar Welfare...

I've been trying to find the right way to write about this. Then, the other day, out of the blue, I got it. What is "White Collar Welfare"? As described by a co-worker, it's the process of a bunch of white collar workers generating busy work for a bunch of other white collar workers who in turn need the assistance of others and in the end, it's just a bunch of busy work to keep them all employed.

I am often dumbfounded by this whole process. There is sooooo much stuff that we do, just to do it. Not because there is any real value in it. Not because something will change because we did it. Not because someone will be more the wiser because of our work. Not because something will be better, faster, stronger, cheaper. We do it just to do it. Well, that, and because some superior told us to.

And yet, when it comes to real work - the work that WILL make things better, cheaper, faster, stronger, more secure... there's no support for that kind of work.

There are certain "standards" in industry that exemplify this "white collar welfare" perfectly. It's all about documentation. It's all about standard processes and practices. Yet none of the "standards" really work in industry. And yet, they are forced upon the company by some probably well-meaning executive with no footing in the real world. It complicates the job the workers are trying to accomplish, creates additional paperwork and drudgery and meetings up the wazoo, and for what? Nothing really changes, because after all of the work is done, everything goes back to the way it was.

What happened to just doing what needs to be done? To not needing a 16x48 cell spreadsheet to know who was Responsible, Accountable, Informed and whatever that C stands for. What did we do before the letters I, T, I and L were all stuck together? Or those before those guys in DC, Sarbanes and his buddy Oxley decided that ALL of us in business needed to be sentenced to death by paperwork for the grievous acts of a few idiots. The laws were already in place. They were broken. Punish them, not us. Are we any better off, or is unemployment just a little less.

Innovation is stifled by unwieldy processes and documentation. There is so much in the way of getting things done that nothing gets done. Common Sense, even Business Sense, has taken a back seat to Process 5.6.32.a.7 subsection 37b.9. Progress is hindered by the need to write a 500-page proposal and fill out for TP-8675309 before making a change to fix a spelling mistake found in Process 5.6.32.a.7 subsection 37b.9. Real work is subjugated by White Collar Welfare. Such is the life we life. :-(