Kieran Healy

Max Weber Call Your Office

Via the excellent Julian Sanchez comes this snippet illustrating the difference between traditional and legal-rational authority. Tom DeLay wants to smoke in Tom Khandker’s restaurant:

Khandker: “I’m sorry, sir, but this is a federal building, and it’s against the law of the federal government.”

DeLay: “I am the federal government.”

But Khandker stood his ground, and DeLay and several cigar-chomping compatriots left for the smoke-filled Caucus Room before the cheesecake course.

It’s just occured to me that if anyone is entitled to call his office, it’s Weber. He practically invented offices and calling.

Herr Professor Doktor Healy, how do you manage to keep up your good cheer when faced by an ungrateful public who refuse to laugh at your jokes or chuckle at your apt juxtapositions?

Nonetheless, keep up the good work.

Oy—“calling.” I read this post quickly early in the day, didn’t follow the link, and the pun didn’t register on me until, hours later, I was discussing ‘Politics as a Vocation’ with a friend. I then doubled over in pain.