Work-expansion habits stem from coping with demand unpredictability, not laziness.
Evidence
In such situations street-level bureaucrats have a strong incentive, when they can, to let the work expand to fill the amount of time available. This Peter Principle is commonly perceived to result from laziness, inertia, and inability to plan. While it may be related to these things, it is also rooted in the bureaucratic need to cope with the unpredictability of demand. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 925
Categorization
- SEED: Angle: ‘It’s not laziness’ — how bureaucratic pacing behavior gets moralized as personal failure when it is a rational hedge against volatile demand.
- XREF: connects to: Workers resist procedural change because it threatens coping routines, not novelty — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 843; Treating coping practices as optimal suppresses innovation and rationalizes mediocrity. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1066; The rigidity of worker attitudes depends on how well they relieve job stress — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1050
Broader Connections
- The rigidity of worker attitudes depends on how well they relieve job stress
#expands(0.90) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1050 - Workers resist procedural change because it threatens coping routines, not novelty
#expands(0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 843 - Treating coping practices as optimal suppresses innovation and rationalizes mediocrity.
#complicates(0.80) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1066