No doubt you have encountered a bureaucratic snafu or two from time to time. If not, you are lucky. Surely you have read about someone who purchased an appliance; a refrigerator that refused to keep their left-overs cold or that broke down soon after installation, or a toaster, that wouldn’t toast their English muffins.
Call after call to the dealer or manufacturer failed to elicit a repair or even offer any satisfactory response. You may have reached a “service” person who you couldn’t understand.
Finally, you resorted to contacting a local newspaper’s ombudsman, or TV station’s consumer help reporter who quickly…sometimes…wades through the bureaucracy to resolve the issue or gets your money refunded…sometimes.
The word “snafu” is an acronym which means: “Situation normal, all…” you can guess the rest. Suffice to say, it was coined by soldiers during World War II to describe the bureaucracy of the Army. In my experience, bureaucrats exist to interpret the fine print that you haven’t read or don’t understand, and to aggravate you, making your life miserable.
Enter poor Kinley Maner, a 10-year-old girl in Arizona, who learned this the hard way. Young Kinley decided to raise chickens because they were “cute” and selling them at the County Fair would be “fun.” Her folks encouraged Kinley because they felt caring for chickens was a good lesson to learn and an introduction to running a business. It wasn’t long before a bureaucratic snafu spoiled her fun.
Kinley was successful in earning $2,100 by auctioning six birds at the fair. The Small Stock Association, sponsors of the fair, wrote the kid a check which Mom deposited in her own account for safekeeping. Shortly after, Mom received a notice that her bank account had been cancelled.
After spending many hours on the phone with multiple nameless customer service persons she could hardly understand, the big nationally-known bank finally explained that the check “had been frozen” because the Small Stock Association’s phone number on the check was not in service. Even after the association’s official, who wrote the check, visited the local branch to explain that their number had been changed and the check was legitimate, the bank refused to un-freeze Mom’s account and “there was nothing they could do about it.” Kinley’s money had flown the coop. No money for Kinley!
Funny how a little threat of bad publicity will cut through the bureaucracy of a company. Mom contacted the local TV station, which broadcast Kinley’s tale on their evening newscast. Yup, you guessed it. Shortly after the broadcast the big nationally known bank apologized, blaming the whole thing…wait for it…on a bureaucratic snafu. Kinley’s $2,100, chicken feed to the bank, a fortune to Kinley, was returned. Mom’s account was un-frozen.
Kinley used some of the money (perhaps to buy more chickens?) and the rest went into a new college account, presumably at a different bank.
Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and happily retired writer. His newspaper columns appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.
Thoughts on…
By Dick Morgado