As for that classic Soviet-time joke I alluded to, translated with some poetic license...

"You are listening to Radio Yerevan's Listeners' Questions Hour.
Question: is it true that in Moscow, Mercedeses are distributed for free?
Answer: the news is true, but it's not in Moscow but in Leningrad, not Mercedeses but Moskviches, and they aren't distributed but disfigured."

(In Hungarian, it ended with "osztogatnak" = distributed and "fosztogatnak" = ransacked.)


_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Second, mismanagement was not only the result of the goals, but the choice of mis-managers, too. Falling for the neoliberal cult of managers, which worships CEOs as hyper-productive wizards who achieve profit in any field without knowing the technical details, DB's top echelons were staffed with managers from the private sector -- and non-rail private sector at that.

It is hard to believe that these folks are not acting with malice but it may be useful to consider that this is not true for the majority of the individuals involved.  The assumptions here might influence the effectiveness of the counter argument.  Generally, one is a more effective proponent of a particular program and philosophy if one strongly believes in their correctness.  Conviction can add charisma.  My experiences with Los Angeles Unified School District may illustrate this view.

I worked directly for one of the top technical administrataors in the district--the specifying electrical engineer, an E.E. and a P.E.  He is a man of enormous integrity and ability, one of the 20% who did 80% of the work.  There were many able and dedicated professionals in the Architecture and Engineering Division at the time.

The Director of that division was a career school administrator with a principal's certificate whose earlier teaching experience included Physical Education.  Being responsible for an entire campus is a challenging task and those who are good at it tend to move on to greater and greater responsibilities.  Administrators have their own bargaining unit, however, and not all who obtain the certificate and work their way up from program coordinator to principal can handle the assignment satisfactorily.  This can lead to very public problems, criticisms and embarrassment for top of the organization.  What to do with such individuals?

This lady was put in charge of a division where she was not involved with parents and teachers.  (The Information Technology Division was likewise run by a former shop teacher turned administrator with a passion for ham radio.)  Much less opportunity for negative publicity--until the District got voter approval for a $2.3 billion renovation bond issue.  She did her best but I doubt she really understood the technical and administrative implications of the decisions she made and she routinely accepted the superior claim of ad hoc claims of District politics over technical necessity.

Just one of those decisions illustrates the scope of the problem.  In order to show faith with the public and the personnel on the 600+ school sites in the District to[ administrators wanted to front load as much of the work as possible.  Leaking roofs were low hanging fruit, as were contracts for painters and muralists.  There had been a 20 year drought in maintenance from the passage of Prop. 13 in the late 70s to the passage of this bond issue in 1997.  So, in order to further front load the effort it was decided to re-surface the playgrounds, most of which were asphalt.  Unfortunately, the bulk of the work being done consisted of technology upgrades: public address/telephone systems, intrusion detection, cable TV distribution systems and network wiring systems.  These usually required conduit to be laid in trenches, usually over asphalt that had just been re-done for the first time in 30 years.  

The engineer for whom I worked had cogently argued against this to no avail, and this was just the most obvious of the problems arising from weak upper management.  My own diagnosis for this situation is institutional incompetence:  a situation where good people with good intentions are prevented from doing good work by the very nature of the system within which they work.      

   

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."