Principle-ty

[I. Marc Carlson]

It seems to me, from what I've seen here, that the reason for wanting 
to great principalities is to lessen the bureaucratic burden on the kingdom,
and make things easier to manage (although to be honest, I seem to have
totally missed why principalities would be any better than the administrative
regions we currently have, other than this change would decrease from 
5 to 3 the number of final reports filed to the kingdom officers every 
month).

My question is, rather than shuffle around the hierarchy to make the amount
of paperwork easier to recieve, why not try to find ways to eliminate the
paperwork altogether (or at lease decrease it).  Now, I'll admit I haven't
been an officer for well over a decade, but I can't imagine that there's
all THAT much that is absolutely necessary to send in (as opposed to
all those reports that are desireable, *just in case* they are needed, but
nobody really ever looks at them -- and those can be sent elsewhere, say to
the Kingdom archives for conversion to microform and perpetual storage).

To give a Mundane example, I know that when I took over my current job, I was
handed a big batch of monthly statistics to compile and turn in, over half of
which involved reports our Dean had asked to be compiled five years ago and
forgot about because he got the answer he asked for after the first month or
so.  Now, I'm perfectly happy to save the raw data as it comes in, because you
"never know" when that historical information will be of use (and it doesn't
take up much space), but I feel it's inefficient to continue to do the math to
compile statistics that no one cares enough about to bother reading. 

Now, I may be mistaken in this, but knowing the paranoid-retentive ways in
which bureaucracies self-perpetuate, and recognizing that the administration
of a "kingdom" involves a strongly bureaucratic structure, I can't help but
think that rather than obscuring the problems of too much for the people on
top to do, by disquising under a new name and a face lift, it would be more
efficient to start clearing away the overgrown underbrush from the bottom.

Please feel free to correct me if you feel that I am wrong in this.

I. Marc Carlson, Reference Librarian    |LIB_IMC at CENTUM.UTULSA.EDU
Tulsa Community College, West Campus LRC|Sometimes known as:
Reference Tech. McFarlin Library        | Diarmuit Ui Dhuinn 
University of Tulsa, 2933 E. 6th St.    | University of Northkeep 
Tulsa, OK  74104-3123 (918) 631-3794    | Northkeepshire, Ansteorra