View source for Tenth law of worker entropy

{{A|work|
[[File:Prisoner of War Parcel, British Red Cross.JPG|450px|thumb|center|Your parcel, madam.]]
}}{{quote|{{Tenth law of worker entropy}}}}

Of any [[agency problem|agent]], the point at which {{sex|her}} immediate concern — making enough of an intervention to convey an air of {{sex|her}} own indispensability — is eclipsed by someone else’s. Especially if that someone else is ''also'' an [[agent]] in the service of the same [[principal]], and extra-specially where that [[principal]], by dint of its [[legal personality|corporate personality]] or its [[ultimate client|great remove from the details of the matter at hand]] is in no position to assert its own view of what is in its best interests. 

This amounts to a kind of “honour amongst thieves”. 

As we have remarked [[look, I tried|elsewhere]], much of the [[financial services]] industry consists in [[agent]]s of one stripe or another extracting a livelihood from the transit between them of a parcel — typically, millions of little parcels — owned by someone else — typically, millions of little someone elses. 

Each parcel’s owner, a [[principal]], has for one reason or another little capacity to observe or intervene in this game, but participates in it all the same because of a perceived historical tendency of parcels, in general, to rise in value over time at a greater rate than are they atrophied by this environment of persistent, universal [[rent-seeking|rent-extraction]]. Not always — as unit holders in [[Fairfield Sentry]] would no doubt attest — but nonetheless ''generally''. As a rule, over the the run of western civilisation, the tide of prosperity has consistently risen, lifting all the millions of little dinghies upon it, even though each one’s hull has sprung a little, obligatory, leak.

So, the “[[care horizon]]”, and honour amongst thieves.  The [[JC]]’s [[tenth law of worker entropy]] which we will call the [[rule of collective agency]] is this: I will allow you ''your'' [[pedantry]] as long as you grant me ''mine''. It is bad form to impinge on another agent’s reasonable aspiration to [[rent-seeking|extract rent]]. 

Modern [[middle management|management]] has evolved to suit, with the different kinds of agent separated and [[silo]]ed into to areas of sole competence such that one “officious” [[agent]] has no standing over the the domain of another.

For example, a lawyer cannot, even if he wants to — and many of them ''do'' want to: I have yet to find one who does not — overrule a credit officer’s insistence that there must be a [[cross default]] in a overnight financing agreement. He may even get in trouble for trying. “Why should you even care? [[If in doubt, stick it in|It does no harm to ask]].”

{{sa}}
*[[Look, I tried]]
*[[Casanova’s advice]]
{{c|tedium}}