Advice not Support

I wonder why people are hell bent on giving advices? Perhaps it is the easiest thing to do, besides conferring on the advisor a mistaken sense of superiority.

And that is why the bureaucratic world to which I belong, is smitten by the advise bug. Unsolicited advice, normally bordering on the "I told you so" syndrome is generally freely available, especially from the quarters from which one tends to expect support, least of all advice.

Giving support is generally difficult, for one has to stick his neck out while dispensing it. And neck is the most precious thing for bureaucrats like me. And so our subordinates who come to us looking for support are generally turned away with an advice, that generally tends to convey that the subordinate has not been doing his job well. The subordinate who with passage of time becomes the superior continues the tradition forward.

We bureaucrats, especially those who belong to services have to start respecting the clan to which they belong, not just themselves. After all it is only the D.O.B that differentiates us and just being born a couple of years earlier should not give one any credit.

Railways especially is the flag-bearer of this tradition of "giving advices". The higher the person is in the hierarchy, the more smitten he is by the "advice bug". In an earlier blog I had written about the reign of the mediocrity. Perhaps therein lies the answer. Answer Yes, Solution No.