The Mysterious Art of High Management
Picture this. A big (as in serving six million plus customers) service provider determines that in order more expeditiously to complete a certain type of work a pilot project is to be formed. Two guys are hired to work this project. By its very nature, what's required in order for the project to succeed is cross-departmental communication (others doing the same type of work in the 'old' or non-pilot project style need to be informed that certain parts of their work will no longer be done by them but by the two new guys).
This requires clear and specific lines of communication, clear identification of those bearing managerial responsibility for the two new guys, clear demarcation of the areas in which the new guys are to work, and a willingness on the part of all to compromise old ways of doing things in order to establish whether or not, as predicted, the new way of doing things will in fact generate efficiencies and cost savings.
The manager with whom the two new guys are most familiar is MG. The project was initiated by GH (MG's immediate manager). The local 'process guru' is RH (who reminds me irresistably of Ned Flanders). MG currently disavows all responsibility for the project except in the most minor advisory capacity. GH disavows all day to day managerial responsibilities, insisting they have been delegated to MG. MG in turn insists that RH is now responsible for all 'work-flow and strategic disposition' decisions in relation to the new guys. RH insists that his sole responsibility is as mentor, and advisor in difficult work situations (the role MG claims).
Individual department managers constantly protest to MG that the New Way of Doing Things interferes with smoothly operating procedures because a) no one knew the project was being undertaken; 
no one knew the new guys had been hired; c) no one has been told what they are doing, or its scope, or its geographic extent; d) no one knows who the new guys are, why they keep 'hijacking' specific parts of other people's work, or what to do about it - except bitch to MG, who then takes away the parts of the new guys' work being bitched about, leaving them almost nothing to do. Except bitch in their turn to GH, who refers them back either to MG or RH.
Currently I'm being paid $18 an hour to do nothing. Literally, nothing.
So I've taken matters into my own hands. I call relevant department heads, explain the situation, pitch the overall project to them as if for the first time (and for most of them it is the first time they've heard anything of it). Slowly, I'm establishing a personal network that will ultimately produce work of the desired type - when it exists at all. It seems that there is far less of it available than was originally indicated. I am, in fact, and three months after its putative beginning, creating the project that I was originally hired to work on.
Work? What's that then?
And 'managers'? This crew couldn't organize the proverbial piss-up in a brewery, and are generally as useful as a one-legged man at an arse-kicking contest.