[maxwelldone]

This reminds me of a great scene[1] from the British show "Yes, Minister". It's from an episode called The Compassionate Society where a minister for Department of Administrative Affairs learns about a newly built hospital which has some 500 employees but no doctors & patients. The scene I linked is a conversation between the minister & his private secretary where the latter explains why administrators are essential no matter what.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAk448volww

Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLU-Evdlt-A

[iamstupidsimple]

Wow, I was just thinking about this scene as well! It really is timeless. Especially the bit about measuring success by activity and not results.

[jiggawatts]

I used to think Yes Minister was the least humorous comedy on television, and I could not for the life of me understand why my father liked it so much.

He lived under communism, with its dozen+ levels of government bureaucracy, so you can imagine why he thought it was hilarious.

Once I had worked as a consultant for government departments, I suddenly "got" it, and now Yes Minister is one of my favourite TV shows of all time. The bit about hospitals is all too true.

For example, just recently, I had to fill out a stack of paperwork to provision a virtual server for hosting an archived, read-only web site for data that hasn't changed since 2017 and has three (3) users. Literally a stack. As in, a pile. About a hundred pages, or a short novel. That nobody will ever read, except if the time comes to blame me for a shortcoming that they themselves could not have avoided.