Bureaucrats of the world

Dutch photographer Jan Banning's book "Bureaucratics" is a collection of amazing photos of bureaucrats on five continents, each posed at his or her desk, in her or his office, with notes about rank and salary. Pictured above, "India bureau typeroom," Bihar. Below, Sheriff of Crockett County, TX.

The photography has a conceptual, typological approach reminding of August Sander’s ‘Menschen des 20 Jahrhunderts’ (‘People of the Twentieth Century’). Each subject is posed behind his or her desk. The photos all have a square format (fitting the subject), are shot from the same height (that of the client), with the desk – its front or side photographed parallel to the horizontal edges of the frame – serving as a bulwark protecting the representative of rule and regulation against the individual citizen, the warm-blooded exception. They are full of telling details that sometimes reveal the way the state proclaims its power or the bureaucrat’s rank and function, sometimes of a more private character and are accompanied by information such as name, age, function and salary. Though there is a high degree of humour and absurdity in these photos, they also show compassion with the inhabitants of the state’s paper labyrinth.

Bureaucratics (via Super Punch)

• [Stefan Jones]

  That poor bastard in the top photo is filling out a form to request an appointment with the scheduling officer so he can petition for an Equipment Disposal Request hearing to get a ruling on whether he can toss out the typewriter behind his right shoulder.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    When I was in Delhi, I went to get a train ticket to Chandigarh.  The ticket window told me to go upstairs to the Office For Selling Train Tickets To Foreigners.  There were eight men at desks in an open rectangle.  I had to start at the first desk.  He sent me to desk two, and so on around the room until I returned to desk one and he sold me the tickets.  No one actually did anything except look at my passport and send me to the next desk.

    • [Lemoutan]

      Like a peristaltic wave.

• [ayuvar]

  It is a little weird to see so many desks without computers on them.

• [Dave X]

  Looks like good money could be made by selling file cabinets in India.

  • [ocschwar]

    Very reliable information storage technology. Stays functional during blackouts. Way less sensitive to the heat, dust, and humidity. 

    • [Dave X]

       And hey, it’s GOT to be better than the huge piles of papers laying all over the place.

    • [David Kopelman]

      But not so much to bugs, mice, rats , bats, fungus. I’d be highly impressed if anyone could find what they were looking for in any of those big sloppy piles of files. And you’d probably have to fill out 8 forms requesting the lookup. It’s life imitating Terry Gilliam’s BRAZIL, without the electricity.

• [ocschwar]

  A year ago my better half and I were in Chennai and visited the Government Museum (absolutely fascinating exhibits – Greco Buddhist artifacts from nearby, and more), We wanted postcards (natch) and my better half wanted an Indian alphabet reference chart and some other publications. 

  It’s India, so of course the postcards were in a closed cabinet, along with all the sale copies of the museum’s publications (the Indian sun has no mercy on anything fancy-printed), and since the sales clerk wasn’t in, the janitor walked us to the museum’s central office to bring out one of the curators, and we got a glimpse right back to the mid 20th century. That office was 100% paper based. Accountants writing in ledger books as they moved receipts from an inbox to an outbox. One dude with an all mechanical typewriter banging away at it. Another clerk filing reports in manila folders. Rubber stamps galore. A rotary mimeographer by the door. I’d have lingered just to take it all in..

  The guy who came out to open the sales cabinet was a scholar by the look of what he left behind. He was miffed at leaving his desk, but his mood improved lot when we pointed at things besides the postcards. And the publications themselves were also a throwback, clearly printed on rotary presses. 

  Anyway, the scene made sense. If the people in that office could do their jobs with a little space heater on each desk, they were better off doing it that way in the OMGWTFBBQ heat of the thermal equator. ANd besides, everything they had was just an earlier form of information technology: the mimeographer, the clipboards, fillout forms, ledgers, rubber stamps, et cetera. And thinking back to my childhood and encountering those scenes back then, I can point out that a bureaucrat today is so much scarier than back then. “What was your name again? *clickety click*”

• [dioptase]

  I can’t view the bureaucracy pictures here in China due to bureaucracy.

• [Jeff Scott]

  That French narcotics officer’s office is hilarious.

  • [Dave X]

     Yeah, he seems a little conflicted.

    • [EBONexus]

       Maybe they’re trophies from drug busts he’s been involved in?

• [Jonathan Roberts]

  I see the Bolivian guy in 22 has quite a bit of freedom to decorate his own office.

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  The Russians and Americans all look like they came from Central Casting.

  Witherspoon!  Get me two Olgas and a Slava!

• [hypnosifl]

  I have a sudden urge to go watch “Brazil”.

• [Dlo Burns]

  Each of those typewriters is for a different local language/dialect. 

• [Lemoutan]

  It’s what finished off the Ottoman Empire y’know.  True.

• [Michael Polo]

  They are so worthy of our derision. Us comment-o-crats get stuff done!

• [howaboutthisdangit]

  “Yemen-bureau-16″ needs something to do.  Will somebody please pile some paperwork on his desk?

• [EBONexus]

  I’m amazed how many Liberian bureaucrats reported that they hadn’t received their salary in months or longer. County Commissioner Weadatu (liberia 19) said he hasn’t been paid in the previous year. Incredible dedication to their jobs.

  Also, Liberia 35 – Brama Nyé is head of the Revenue Office in the town of Smell-no-Taste. Looked up the origin of the odd name: http://www.cicr-columbia.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Smell-No-Taste.pdf (see p10)

  In WWII, American military & contractors building the airport led to a wave of domestic migrants seeking construction jobs. But most didn’t find work, and went hungry while camped outside compounds housing ex-pats and military families, who ate food imported from home. The migrants could smell the food being cooked, but never getting to taste it. Hence the town – Smell-no-Taste.

• [Nagurski]

  Ikiru!
  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044741/