Bureaucrats

Some people like to spew words that they often don't actually think about - lazy thinking, lazy communication.

In reaction to a Facebook comment I just read I wanted to actually think about a word used - bureaucrat.  It gets slung around quite a bit, without thinking.  In fact, in many of my jobs, I could easily have been labeled a bureaucrat.  Not that I would have cared much about such unthinking remarks.  It's a term often used for public servants, better names public employees.  Elected officials are, in my mind and vocabulary, public servants.  They are elected to SERVE the public.  Public employees, in contrast, are hired to perform a job for the public.  Both are often called bureaucrats.

I found this on Wikipedia:  “The term bureaucrat was first used in print during the French Revolution, by the journalist Fouilloux in the Père Duchesne in 1791, writing that the object most deserving of his disgust was the bureaucrat, harbinger of a "new mode of servitude”.

Yes, servitude.  In each, the public servant, or the public employee, their function is to SERVE the public.

A colleague once told me how she distinguished between the two:  the public servant has very few qualifications, training or often little experience required to get the job; the public employee, depending on the position they hold generally has a list of required qualifications, training and experience even to be interviewed for the position.

In either case, if a public servant, or a public employee isn’t doing the job you think they should be doing, first, be sure to determine if the job you think they should be doing is the job they are supposed to be doing.  In my experience, many in the general public have no idea what any particular individual’s job is other than their own because most of us are quite self-absorbed and don’t pay attention to the world around us.  Many in the general public seem to believe that anyone at any public desk is there to do whatever is asked of them by whoever asks.  If that same person were on the other side of the counter, you can be sure they would see how ridiculous their expectation is.

Before you go charging into any particular agency, be sure you are going to the correct agency whose purpose is to help you with what it is you need help with.  Then, be sure to find out what office and what individual it is that you should go to.  Then, before you make your request, take a breath and think and understand that you are one, single individual making a request that employee or official has heard, just in that day alone, more times than you might think.  They are people, just like you, who have undoubtedly already faced a slew of people who want something, want it now and, many times, are already angry when they approach this person with their expectations.

When you reduce an individual to a category, to a word, in this case usually negative, you behave toward that individual in ways that you are often unconscious of that will affect the outcome of your interaction.  Fortunately, good public employees, who have been empowered by management to do their job and given a work load that is manageable, will be able to overlook your shortcomings in your approach and will be able to help you or find someone who can.

If you don’t take responsibility for what takes place around you, you will always be disgruntled and rarely satisfied.

I was a librarian for most of my adult life and worked most often in public libraries.  My job was to help people find books they were looking for (which, btw, they should have learned to find themselves) or by answering questions for them by getting them information from various sources.  If someone wanted something our library couldn’t help them with, I often called around and found an agency that could help them.

My experience helping the public was as varied as was each individual approaching me for help.  Some people have no idea what they’re doing and are grateful for any help they can find; other people who have no idea what they’re doing can’t accept that fact and approach already angry and expect problems.  Some people are quite knowledgeable and only approach with requests that are more complex or esoteric and are open and questioning.  Some people are afraid for various reasons, are hesitant about asking any question at all but generally are thankful for assistance.  There are people, having gone to a number of agencies for information, impatient, suspicious and quick to anger resentment, who most often treat others with disrespect and are rarely satisfied because they don’t challenge their own assumptions about most things, including about themselves.

Like all human beings, there are good and not so good public servants and public employees.  Approaching either with expectations is a mistake.  If they aren’t able to help you, there’s always another.  Know what you want, communicate clearly, listen carefully and if you aren’t satisfied ask who else you can speak to.  If you don’t get an answer to that, ask for a supervisor.

I would agree that many of our politicians, who are public servants, seem to have forgotten that and have not been doing much of a job at all.