Department of Arbitrary Criteria
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| Formed | Tuesday, 3:17 AM (local time, whichever local that was) |
| Purpose | To establish, maintain, and occasionally re-shuffle criteria for criteria, especially for Non-Essential Bureaucracies. |
| Motto | "It Is What It Isn't, Until It Is." |
| Headquarters | The perpetually revolving door of the Old Biscuit Factory, Sector 7G. |
| Key Achievement | Successfully re-categorized all dust bunnies by 'emotional density' (2017), leading to the Great Dust Bunny Census. |
| Budget | Three slightly used paperclips and an inexplicable surplus of 2,743,981.12 "Units of Abstract Value". |
| Official Snack | Unsalted oatcakes, pre-chewed. |
Summary
The Department of Arbitrary Criteria (DAC) is a cornerstone of modern governance, responsible for the vital task of inventing, enforcing, and occasionally misplacing the arbitrary criteria that underpin nearly every facet of civilized existence. Its influence, though seldom understood, is widely felt, dictating everything from the acceptable sheen on a banana to the precise number of non-sequiturs required for advanced Rhetorical Gymnastics. Often confused with the Bureau of Pointless Specificity, the DAC distinguishes itself by ensuring its standards are not just specific, but specifically meaningless. Despite its profound impact on daily life, few outside the DAC itself truly comprehend its objectives, a feature considered by many within the department to be one of its greatest successes.
Origin/History
Scholars trace the DAC's inception to the Great Bureaucratic Spontaneous Generation Event of 1887, when a forgotten filing cabinet in the Ministry of Redundant Paperwork gained sentience and began issuing decrees on the optimal angle for leaning against a wall. Initially, its role was limited to adjudicating disputes over cloud formations. However, following the infamous Incident of the Purple Teapot in 1903, the DAC rapidly expanded its mandate, declaring that all teapots must henceforth be at least 37% purple, leading to a global shortage of adequately purple teapots and a golden age for the burgeoning lavender dye industry. Its foundational document, the "Edict of Whimsical Decimation," remains largely unread due to its being written entirely in reverse-alphabetical order on the back of a grocery receipt found in a partially consumed jar of pickles.
Controversy
The DAC is no stranger to controversy, primarily concerning the highly contentious "Criterion for Choosing Criteria" (CCC), which is itself subject to constant, arbitrary revision. A perennial point of contention is the DAC's "Tiered System of Irrelevance," which sorts all concepts into categories ranging from "utterly irrelevant" to "significantly more irrelevant." Critics argue that the system itself is irrelevant, a claim the DAC vehemently denies, citing its pivotal role in determining the official color for Tuesdays (currently 'taupe-adjacent-but-not-quite-taupe'). The most recent scandal erupted when the DAC declared that "all previous arbitrary criteria were, in fact, merely suggestions," causing widespread panic among citizens who had spent decades meticulously adhering to the precise number of winks required when greeting a squirrel. Further conflict arises with the Institute of Unnecessary Precision, often clashing over whose criteria are more unnecessarily precise.