Once upon a time, the government took over the passenger train business in this country and called it AMTRAK. Congress said "You need someone to run the station operations", so AMTRAK created a Station Agent position (SA-01) and hired a person for the job."How does the Station Agent do his/her job without instruction?"
So AMTRAK created a planning position and hired two people: one person to write the instructions (BS-12) and one person to do time studies (BS-11).
"How will we know the Station Agent is doing the tasks correctly?"
So AMTRAK created a Q.C. position and hired two people, one BS-9 to do the studies and one BS-11 to write the reports.
"How are these people going to get paid?"
So AMTRAK created the following positions, a timekeeper (TK-09) and a payroll officer (PO-11) and hired two people.
"Who will be accountable for all of these people?"
So AMTRAK created an administrative network and hired four people: a General Manager (GM-1), an Assistant General Manager (AGM-13) a Service Manager (SM-08), and a Product Line Supervisor (PLS-07).
After one year Congress told AMTRAK, "You have had this command in operation for one year and you are $30,000 over budget. You must cutback overall cost."
So AMTRAK laid off the Station Agent
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