Bureaucrats write memoranda both because they appear to be busy when they are writing and because the memos, once written, immediately become proof that they were busy. Charles Peters. How Washington Really Works. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1983.

“The Peters Principle-take care to distinguish it from the less persuasive Peter Principle -provides that organizations cease to function effectively when employees spend more than 15.8 percent of their time attending meetings or writing memoranda.” Tilting at windmills – meeting mania…review thine enemy…buppie taste…and other odds and ends Washington Monthly, Feb, 1986, by Charles Peters.