ATITD Wiki: The Test Of The Bureaucrat

The Test of the Bureaucracy

``Alas, one of the things that every leader must deal with at some point in his or her career is managing a bureaucracy.
Handling a few people is not a problem - any semi-competent manager can control a few well known people.
But what if you must control 10 people? 100 people? What if they all want your position? Can you handle that?''

[Updated with changes announced 3/12/2004]
``In this Test, you will be managing a Bureaucracy, a structured organization of bosses.
The Test has two parts to it. Only a few people will have to do the first part.
In the first part of the Test, you must gather petition signatures.
[STRUCK: Once per week, the Leader that has]Every two weeks, the 3 Leaders that have accumulated the most signatures will be awarded the opportunity to create a Bureaucracy.
The form of a bureaucracy is as follows: The person forming it is the Executive. He may appoint up to three Directors under him.
Each Director may appoint up to 3 Administrators.
Each Administrator, up to three Managers.
And so on, with Supervisors, Foremen, and finally Workers.
Each person in the Bureaucracy accumulates points daily as follows: One for yourself, and one for each person under you.
But there's one catch.
Anyone in your bureaucracy may, at any time, "Seize Power" - destroying the organization, except for the people below them. In other words, they may effortlessly grab the top spot of power.
Bringing their followers.
If someone does this, all points accumulated by the people ousted are lost.
The points are finalized after 2 weeks. [STRUCK: Test passage is at the rate of 1 person every 2 days.]
When all three complete (or more precisely "when three Bureaucracies complete"),
then a group of 7 advances will be awarded to those people that have accumulated the most points.
So we will have our first group of people passing, 2 weeks after the first Bureaucracy has been built.
(should be about 7 people)
If you do remain in the bureaucracy until the end, your points are permanent, and accumulated.
The Test is not about how big an organization you can build - it's about how big you dare build.
It's possible to demote yourself, switching places with any person directly below you. So if you and a handful of close friends think that you can manage a huge organization, periodically switching off for points, that's allowed, even encouraged.''

You must accumulate at least 49 points to pass.

UP TO:

1 executive
3 directors
9 administrators
27 managers
81 supervisors
243 foremen
729 workers

When both Esme and I (Teao) first each got a bureau I chatted Teppy to find out some details. We wanted to make sure nothing we did messed things up and prevented passes or something. The info below is from that and from what we learned so far in the first period.

To be clear, every 2 weeks 3 opportunities are given out to the 3 people with the most signatures. It is unclear it this is every 2 RL weeks or 2 Teppy weeks. It is totally unrelated to passings in current bureaus. Teppy said he will likely change an opportunity to a tradeable item.

After you get an opportunity you can build the building. After you build the building it effectively has a start button (where you enter the name of the bureau). The bureau ends 2 weeks Teppy time after you hit the start button.

Test passings are given out after every 3rd bureau ends. Doesn't matter which 3 bureaus. For example, one week 3 opportunities are given out but only 2 are started. Around the time they end 3 more opportunities are handed out. If one of those is started before the left over one from the prior week then passings will be given out when that one ends.

If a person gets an opportunity and doesn't use it then he will effectivly delay 7 passings for ever. If someone does that the next two people to do the same have will have no effect but the 4th will do it again.

Headquarters

  You can build a headquarters for your bureacracy, allowing you to name it, for the cost of:

Seizures

Remember that at any time, any member of the bureaucracy may seize power. If you wish to have a successful bureaucracy, you must make sure that the only people recruited are those whom you can trust not only to seize power, but to not hire anyone who might. Some seizures have been due to a player not understanding just what seizing power does to the rest of the bureaucracy. Others have been due to people hiring anyone who asks, or those that use social engineering to get in ("Your executive told me to talk to you about getting hired."). Those can be protected against by simply having good, well-defined hiring policy, and making sure that everyone hired will follow it to the letter.

There has, however, been at least one instance of a high-profile person who had already passed the test seizing a bureaucracy by asking someone who trusted them to hire them into it.

Demoting Yourself

At any time, you have the option to demote yourself; this will allow you to switch places in the bureaucracy with one of your subordinates. If you have no subordinates, then you will leave the bureaucracy altogether (you lose all temporary points gained in that bureau).

Tracking Your Bureau

Worth doing if you want to maintain a full tree of your bureau, be sure who has hired who and make sure no unknown hires are in the bureau. A template for tracking is at BureauTrackerTemplate. The maintainer should require updates on all hires and check points total correctly daily.