Bureaucracy ii: Objective mirage

[see previous post]

Adorno:

'.. the appraising look of the manager asking an interview candidate to sit down, and illuminating his face in such a way as to divide it pitilessly into bright utilizable parts and dark, disreputable areas of incompetence.'

But the light that so illuminates the candidate does not emanate from the manager. It is the Company's light, and the manager simply refracts it. He speaks with a voice, and looks with an eye trained by the the Company (no, not by training videos, but the very structure if the institution). His small talk, enquiries after your health and so on are all subordinate to testing your useability, suitability, adaptability etc. Thus, the designs of the company empty both the manager and language itelf into the merest instruments.

This is how bureacracy works. People represent and speak on behalf of The Company, but 'the company' is not localised in any individual, not even, or especially, the managing director. It is a kind of objective mirage, or working fiction. Because this objective mirage is never localised in an individual, it is always 'elsewhere,' deferred, absent.

For some revealing 'insider' reflections on bureaucracy, see State Street.