There is an excellent little book in Swedish named Vi bara lyder - We just obey - that studies the unemployment agency from the bottom (the author's own experiences as out of work PhD) to the top (interviews with the former minister and former head of the agency), but with focus on the grunts that keeps it rolling.

It is a fundamentally positive study of a destructive organisation that runs over the unemployed, the grunts, the managers and even the top who when they can't deliver lower unemployment (because that does not depend on the unemployment office), are sacrificed as pawns. Of course, the differences in consequences are huge for the unemployed and the burnt-out grunts (some of whom end up unemployed) on one side and the top bosses who parachutes into something less stressful, but the system is working against them all.

"We just obey" is how some of the grunts handle it, though many has ideas and aspirations of helping people they just need to get all the mandated crap out of the way first (this is where a lot of them burn out).

I can relate, I once had a meeting at the unemployment office at the time when the unemployment office buying the services of private "coaches" was all the rage. I figured I might give that a go if I could get someone who had a clue about the job market for the kind of work I was looking for. The unemployment officer looked a bit pained as she said that she was not allowed to recommend anyone (free market and all of that), but then shone up, gave me a binder with all coaches and then stated "I could however leave it open at this page and then you can choose to turn the pages if you want to...". I took the implied advice and asked for the coach on the page and it was actually pretty good.

But back to the book, most of those officers interviewed would rather do more interesting things, though many of them would like to work at the unemployment office as it was in the days of full employment (ended in 1991 I think) when their job was to keep contact with local employers and present to unemployed the range of different jobs available and assess which jobs they had the right background for. Much more rewarding and actually work that can be done.

And that was the strenght of the book, the empathy with all the cogs, even the more powerful ones.

The author has since become a strong voice for UBI.