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Rubber Ducks And Dumb Decisions

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Your assumption that a chunk of your hard earned money that goes to the government is wasted does not go unfunded. For the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Canada, the Ontarian government is spending $120,000 on a giant inflatable rubber ducky. This is one of many cases where you wonder who makes these decisions? How does this happen?  We will never know in this case but having worked for a large organization in the past I have insights on how stupid decisions happen. It’s easy to blame the Premier/leader for such stupid waste but with so many levels of management and bureaucrats, I think good ideas are lost in the process and are affected by the result of group think. Here’s my take on the rubber ducky fiasco.

First, a comity probably set a budget for the festivities. With the help of a HR firm, they hired a bunch of people (like Bill and Randy) with MBAs to come up with ideas how to spend the money. Lacking ideas, Bill and Randy hires an external consulting firm to come up with something exiting. The very expensive per hour +fees consulting firm gladly accepts the task. The consulting firm runs a bunch of focus groups, do some “market research”, and other gimmicks to fill up their pricey report. Bill and Randy then send the report to the comity for approval. The comity, looking for ways to justify is existence, hires another consulting firm to have a 2nd opinion. The consulting firm suggests some changes to justify their fees. The comity submits the amended report to some board to get it approve. The board then sends the report to some regulatory agency with their own army of bureaucrats to make sure that none of the ideas were too over the top because you wouldn’t want a scandal on the 150th anniversary of Canada. This takes a lot of time and the report is sent back requesting some changes. By that time, the original people that were hired, Bill and Randy, got transferred to a different department and were replaced by new hire Linda and Hank (both MBAs). Hank and Linda goes back to the drawing board to come with new refreshing ways to celebrate Canada’s 150th. During the process, Hank is off on paternity leave for a year and Linda is unfortunately on medical leave. Again with the help of an external HR firm, the comity manages to temporarily replace Hank and Linda with Tim and Gus (MBAs) at the last minute. Luckily Hank and Linda’s position are guaranteed once they are back. With time running out and knowing that he has no job prospect following this project, Gus decides to smoke weed with his buddy Bobby (Bob) that has a rubber ducky company. Bob makes a joke about a giant rubber ducky and that’s when Gus decides to use it as his idea to celebrate Canada. Gus suggests the giant rubber duck idea to the comity and plugs in his buddy’s rubber ducky company. The board submits the idea for approval to a few agencies like nature, ethics, marketing, First Nation, Second Nation etc… And finally Bob gets the contract because he’s the only one that submitted a bid since nobody else has a giant rubber ducky in their inventory. Gus is then poached by Bob’s rubber ducky company and becomes an official lobbyist. Happy 150th Canada Day!

I think that what happened. I think that’s how a lot of serious decisions are made. I have seen some of the stuff above happened when I worked in the private sector. I don’t mind giant rubber ducks. I just wish it was private money that funds it. Anyway if the rubber ducky ever comes near my home I will bring my daughter to see it so I can tangibly show her why her school is broke.

As for what’s to come next, since the giant rubber ducky has no particular meaning, it could be used for a bunch of other government celebrations. With about 200 countries around the world and a scarcity of giant rubber ducks, this could lead to situations of over bidding which would result into a gold mine for Bob since governments are not in the business of saving money any time soon.

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