In Popular Culture
A "generalization" of Parkinson's Law, is mentioned in an episode of British comedy series Yes Minister, The Skeleton in the Cupboard, originally aired on November 25, 1982. In that episode, an undersecretary of the Department, played by Ian Lavender, explains to the Minister that a certain county "has the smallest establishment of social workers in the U.K." Answering the Minister's question "Is that supposed to be a good thing?", he replies, "Oh yes, sign of efficiency. Parkinson's Law of social work you see; it's well known that social problems increase to occupy the total number of social workers to deal with them".
Read more about this topic: Parkinson's Law
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“The lowest form of popular culture—lack of information, misinformation, disinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people’s lives—has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.”
—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)
“That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead-drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He was one whose glory was an inner glory, one who placed culture above prosperity, fairness above profit, generosity above possessions, hospitality above comfort, courtesy above triumph, courage above safety, kindness above personal welfare, honor above success.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 1 (1962)