Chapter 13: Swimming in Bureaucracy

I TOOK MY TIME getting ready for the day. The four of us resident in the suite played cards and drank martinis until midnight. I couldn’t believe Ms. Smith had been up at eight to answer the door. She’d drunk almost enough to act human. And I knew Jack would still be asleep. Since I suddenly had an administrative assistant, I decided to dress professionally. Jack returned my suit last night, so I pulled it on and knotted the tie. I guess I wouldn’t look entirely out of place in DC.

The shared common area of the suite had been completely rearranged. The dining area had been transformed into an office. Three large computer monitors were arranged around the diminutive figure of my assistant, whose name I still didn’t know. She tapped on a keyboard and swiped images from one screen to another. She had a spreadsheet, a calendar, a word processor, a diagram, and several browser windows open.

I didn’t want to startle her, so I cleared my throat.

“Mr. Smith!” she shouted. She nearly fell out of her chair. So much for not startling her.

“Yes. While I order breakfast for the crew here, why don’t you tell me your name.”

“Name?”

“Yes. You can’t expect me to just say ‘Hey you!’ or worse, call you ‘Miss Administrative Assistant.’ What is your name?”

“Oh. I thought you knew. I’m Mattie Baines. I am officially an intern in the Department of Health and Human Resources. That department was just renamed and is getting a lot of traction with the addition of Mr. Adams. I have been assigned to the Special Office of Reproduction, Duplication, Insemination, and Defense as your administrative assistant.”

“Special Office of Reproduction, Duplication, Insemination, and Defense? SORDID? Really?”

“Let me show you the organization chart,” she said, flipping windows around on her screen until the center was filled with lines and boxes.

“Just a second,” I said as I finished dialing the phone. “Hi. Yeah. Could you send breakfast for five up, please? Yes, I know it’s eleven o’clock. Can we still get breakfast? Fine. We all trust your judgment. Thank you.” I hung up and turned to the screen. Mattie looked like I’d just farted.

“Now here we have the Department of Health and Human Resources. At the top of the organization, of course, is the Secretary. And then the Deputy Secretary and the Chief of staff. Everybody reports to the chief of staff except the Secretary’s personal interests, including the Executive Secretariat, the Office of Health Reform, and the Office on Disability. The Deputy Secretary has the office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs and the Office of Security and Strategic Information. Like I said, everybody else reports to the Chief of Staff, which includes these fourteen offices, plus these programs, administrations, agencies, services, and centers. He’s very important to have twenty-eight boxes reporting to him. Over here, right under the box for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, is our box, the Assistant Secretary for the Special Office of Reproduction, Duplication, Insemination, and Defense.”

“Us, huh? You, me, the Smiths, and Jack Adams?”

“Oh no, sir. Not right under the Assistant Secretary!” Mattie sounded appalled that I’d insult whoever it was that filled that box. She made a gesture at her screen display and moved the org chart to her left, revealing another org chart below it. “This is our organization. Beneath the Assistant Secretary is the Deputy Assistant Secretary and the SORDID Chief of Staff.”

“We have our own Chief of Staff?”

“Of course! That’s how government runs. Without a Chief of Staff, nothing would ever get done. You see, though, that he isn’t nearly as important as the Chief of Staff for the Department of Health and Human Resources. He only has twelve boxes under him and six of those are still empty. But the department only started Monday, so he still has a lot of space to fill. You see that we have the National Repopulation Project, the National Insemination Project, the Directional Committee for Population Demographics, the Project Oversight Committee, the Division for Experimental Cloning, and look! There you are.”

“The Special Liaison for Specimen Care and Well-Being?”

“Yes. And now I have my own box. Notice I don’t work under you. I work next to you as the Care and Well-Being Administrative Assistant.”

“Where is Jack in all this rat’s maze of boxes?”

“Who?”

“Jack Adams. The specimen whose well-being I’m taking care of.”

“Oh. I have to run a search.” She busied herself searching the org charts and sweeping one after another off her screen. “Here we have it. I see why I couldn’t find him. He doesn’t have a direct line of reporting. He has a dotted line structure to the NRP, the NIP, the DoD, Homeland Security, the White House, and the Congressional Committee on Natural Resources. It’s just labeled ‘Specimen’.” There was a knock at the door and I went to let in room service, who were thrown by the absence of the dining room where they would normally serve breakfast.

“Try setting up in the conference room,” I suggested. “Okay. I’d say that was a good day’s work, Mattie. We can knock off for the day. Breakfast, Jack!” I bellowed. “Smith and Smith! We have food!” The two agents emerged from their rooms typically dressed in black and wearing sunglasses. Both groaned and reached to close the drapes as Jack stumbled out of his bedroom.

“Oh, but sir! We can’t quit yet. You have 357 email messages to respond to!”

Mattie Baines was shocked that I woke up at ten, was ready for breakfast at eleven-thirty, and intended to knock off for the day at noon. You’d think I was the president or something.

Still, she needed to get things on track and insisted I answer my email or the entire government would come to a screeching halt. After all, she had a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration. When I started mixing drinks, she dragged me physically to her chair in the dining room and pushed me down.

“You have three hundred ... Now 412 email messages,” Mattie said. “You need to acknowledge and respond or no one will be able to progress with their work. The entire government will come to a standstill.”

“No. I’m not going to sit here and read four hundred email messages. I have enough email on my laptop to keep me busy and most of it is important,” I said, stubbornly pushing back from the desk.

“Oh, no! You can’t use a personal computer in a government office. People will think you are hiding things. And if you delete anything ... You could tie up congress for months, just investigating.” Mattie pushed me back to the desk and I scanned down the list of messages.

“Wait! Most of these messages are a ‘reply-all’ to the same message. It’s down to dozens of ‘Re: Re: Re: Re:’ They don’t all need a response.” I pushed Mattie away as she valiantly tried to keep me at the desk. Little girl, if you think we’re going to have a wrestling match, you’re going to get pinned. “Find the original message. Type ‘Thank you.’ Hit reply all and then delete everything else. Do the same thing for any new messages. Don’t bother me with them unless the building is on fire.”

“Mr. Smith,” Mattie wailed. “What about the replies to your reply?”

“Original messages only, Mattie. No wonder no one gets anything done in DC.”