gid

November 12, 2008

luv me some bureaucracy

I am still reading through The Revolution a Manifesto by Dr. Paul and have been eating up his chapter entitled Economic Freedom.

Check this quote out:

To get an appreciation for the difference between public and private administration in terms of bureaucracy and cost-effectiveness, consider this. The Brookings Institution's John Chubb once investigated the number of bureaucrats working in the central administration office of the New York City public schools. Six telephone calls finally yielded someone who knew the answer, but that person was not allowed to disclose it. Another six calls later, Chubb had at last pinned down someone who knew the answer and could tell him what it was. There were 6,000 bureaucrats working in the central office.

Then Chubb call the Archdiocese of New York, to find out the figure there.(The city's Catholic schools educate one-fifth as many students as did the government-run schools.) Chubb's first telephone call was taken by someone who did not know the answer. Here we go again, he thought. But after a moment she said, "Wait a minute; let me count." Her answer: 26.

Posted by gid at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2008

Getting the Home Office finished

For those who have not heard I will be working from home full time starting December 1st. I've been working on building an office out of the corner of my garage over the last 2 months. I still have a ton to do, so I made a list, which should keep me from jumping spasmodically from task to task.

  1. Get the subfloor down(11-8)
  2. Get the last socket wired(11-8)
  3. Rough in the new AC vent(11-8)
  4. Hang last piece of sheetrock(11-9)
  5. Get first coat of mud on everything(11-11)
  6. Take down old hot water heater vent (11-15)
  7. Patch vent hole(11-15)
  8. Blow in insulation(11-16)
  9. Patch holes created from insulation(11-16)
  10. Finish floating all sheetrock(11-26)
  11. Paint walls and ceiling(11-26)
  12. Put down flooring(11-29)
  13. Hang door 1(11-29)
  14. Hang door 2(11-30)
  15. Trim out room(12-04)
  16. Hang new lighting(12-04)
  17. Run 100 feet of coaxial cable under house(12-09)
  18. Connect AC vent(12-09)
  19. Box around dryer vent
  20. Box around back of AC vent
  21. Paint trim
  22. spackle and caulk trim

Posted by gid at 10:35 AM | Comments (6)