I do not consider a firefighter as a bureaucrat, I consider a bureaucrat as someone sitting in a office taking the world we live in and “f” ing everything they touch up!
I cannot speak for all agencies, but I did do a one year work detail at my agency’s headquarters in DC. The people I worked with were skilled professionals who believed in the mission of the agency to manage the nation’s National Forests for long term and sustainable natural resources. Even the Chief is a career natural resource manager. But the political direction comes down from the Secretary’s office at USDA. They do provide the emphasis of the administration, but still the agency overall is still bound by laws that congress passed, such as the National Forest Management Act of 1976. Most employees look at a DC assignment as an opportunity to learn a bit more about the upper management, but most want to return back to their field units in the real world after a few years (as I have done). Once again, my experience is only with the land management departments (USDA and Department of Interior). I cannot speak for the other departments and how things operate, but I suspect a similar situation; lots of career people with professional expertise in their fields, directed by political appointees.
Fire fighters have offices too and also create policy at the management level.
I’m a professional forester who manages forest land, doing timber management, reforestation, and fire management. I guess I’m a bureaucrat because I work for a federal agency. I really don’t care about the classification, I have lots of things to accomplish and we report those accomplishments to congress annually. At this time, my agency is focused on doing hazardous fuels reduction work on 20 million acres throughout the western U.S. Congress expects us to accomplish this in 10 years. And yes it takes a team to do this work. Those of us on the ground are supported by people who do procurement and contracting for the services we need in their bureaucrat offices. Also the office bureaucrats who keep our IT and financial systems running.
Torvy, I have done my time at our DC headquarters and am anything but naive. I work with the department leadership daily. The primary reason why agencies don’t change operations and focus wildly following elections is that everyday policy is based on laws passed by congress that don’t change much from year to year. For example, the National Forest Management Act of 1976 is still the guiding mission for my agency. Congress will tweak these laws infrequently, and administrations put various spins and emphasis on priorities but overall the missions remain stable from one administration to another.
And I was upper management in manufacturing for 35 years as a Director of a facility containing two large buildings in Indiana, one of which was alongside the interstate highway that was being rebuilt. One instance, I will tell you about here that just still blows my mind, as the highway was being opened one day the state of Indiana put more dust in the air, opening the rebuilt highway, then what we could’ve done without operating under our air permits, and our operations in 15 years.
So you are part of the group who wants to leave all the forests natural?
Why are you referring to my bureaucracy? That sounds like a state highway department situation. Municipal, county, state, and federal agencies are all staffed by… people. Just like your manufacturing facilities. People all have good and bad ideas and governments have no monopoly on inefficient and stupid bureaucratic processes. Corporate entities like Centurylink and many financial institutions are far worse and more frustrating to deal with than any government agency I’ve ever dealt with. And yes, I have said a few choice words myself after dealing with a MVD and Social Security office, but I don’t extend those frustrations to every government entity. My point is that you are broad brushing your characterization of organizations and people without justification.
Ummmm. Because you took umbrage with my BUREACRACY statement!
