A Writer's Journey through the Bureaucratic Maze: A True Account

The author, penning as Paul Shona, is a former bureaucrat, who worked as an analyst for a little over forty-two years in the Canadian federal bureaucracy. During this period he published an umpteen number of comprehensive catalogued reports and contributed a variety of analytic papers to the institution’s flagship publications including Perspectives on Labour and Income, and Canadian Economic Observer (the former Canadian Statistical Review).

This book offers a true account of the author’s journey as a researcher/writer in the bureaucracy and the kind of people and events he encountered on the way. The author’s journey epitomized personality conflicts, nepotism, undue criticism, jealousy, ploys to destroy careers of productive and ambitious employees, exploitation of the most vulnerable employees, and so on.

The central message of the book is that not everyone is cut out to be a bureaucrat. Anyone keen to join the bureaucracy must first assess his/her own personality, if it can not only fit and survive, but also flourish in an environment infested with instincts of open warfare, greed, back-stabbings, and betrayals.

From a researcher/writer’s perspective, the author provides an inspiring and exemplary in-depth personal account of techniques of survival, ways to achieve some autonomy essential for a writer’s creativity, ways to minimize the negative feedback, and stay focused on writing and its ultimate reward: seeing one’s work being published and well acclaimed.

The book is not intended to criticise any agency of the Canadian federal bureaucracy, including the institution the author worked at. Its intention is simply to forewarn all those - the creative thinkers, analysts, and writers - aspiring to pursue their careers in the bureaucracy about the kind of people and obstacles they would likely be dealing with.

A must read for those wanting to pursue a career in the bureaucracy.