Modern Living: Maximizing NATAPROBU

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Channel Pilot. Consider, for example, some of the questions a NATAPROBU aspirant must answer: "Can you describe the lateral communication channels you will have to establish to perform your role in the organization?" Or this: "In like manner, can you describe the vertical channels? Can you identify and describe the role relationships of the organizational units astride the communication channels you have identified?" To the novice, a simple yes or no answer would seem to be enough. According to NATAPROBU's Guidelines for Evaluation, however, any coherent replies immediately relegate the applicant to the "Failure to Meet Requirements in Many Important Respects" category.

In fitting bureaucratic style, the coronation of "Miss Bureaucrat 1969" last week was followed, a few moments later, by the crowning of "Miss Carbon Copy," her twin sister. Both presided over the presentation of awards for extraordinary bureaucratic finesse. Winners received a gold-painted, potbellied, disheveled bird, sculpted by Boren himself. Among the recipients were ex-Ambassador to Panama and former Peace Corps Director Jack Hood Vaughn and John Brayton Redecker, a State Department official and author of CASP: A Systematic Approach to Policy Planning and Analysis in Foreign Affairs. Absent was Vice President Spiro Agnew, tapped for "his contributions to the state of the communications art and to the orbital prolusionary processes, as finalized in direct trajectories."