God, the Boss

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In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. The Earth was without form and void, so God created a small committee. In his infinite wisdom, he carefully balanced the committee vis-a-vis race, gender, ethnic origin, and economic status, in order to interface pluralism with the holistic concept of self-determination, according to accepted adjudicatory guidelines. Even God was impressed, and so ended the first day.

And God said, “Let the committee draw up a mission statement.” And behold, the committee decided to prioritize and strategize and God called that process empowerment. And God thought it sounded pretty good. And evening and morning were the second day.

And God said, “Let the committee determine goals and objectives and engage in long-term planning.” Unfortunately, a debate about the semantic differences between goals and objectives pre-empted almost all of the third day. Although the question was never satisfactorily resolved, God felt the process was constructive. And evening and morning were the third day.

And God said, “Let there be a retreat in which the committee can envision the form of a functional organization and engage in planning by objectives.” The committee considered the re-alignment of priorities and consequential alternatives to current program directions, and God saw that this was good. And God thought it was even worth all the coffee and donuts he had to supply. And so ended the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the committee’s decisions be implemented with long-range planning and strategy.” The committee considered guidelines and linkages and structural sensitivities, and alternatives and implemental models. And God saw that this was very democratic. And so would have ended the fifth day, except for the unintentional renewal of the debate over the differences between goals and objectives.

On the sixth day, the committee agreed on criteria for adjudicatory assessment and evaluation. This was not the agenda that God had planned. He was not able to attend the meeting, however, because he had to take the afternoon off to create day and night and Heaven and Earth and seas and plants and stars and trees and seasons and years and sun and moon and birds and fish and animals and human beings, and he was sort of busy.

On the seventh day, God rested and the committee submitted its recommendations. It turned out that the form for the earth that they put forward was essentially identical to the way that God had created it, so the committee passed a resolution commending God for his implementation according to the guidelines. There was, however, some opinion expressed that the human race should have been created in the committee’s image.

And God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the committee...