Bunch of Nincompoops

So can someone explain to me why :

1. The problem of Lack of Ownership and "tai chi-ing" of tasks/ownership is so prevalent in large organizations

People just cannot seem to take ownership of their own tasks, even though it's so blatantly obvious that the task belongs to them. They keep going around in endless loops, trying to get someone else to own those tasks and the task ends up not getting done. What's wrong with these people?! I mean, the work needs to get done somehow and eventually, someone's got to do it so why waste all this time ding dong-ing emails to and fro???

And, to make it even more infuriating, some people are so bloody "efficient" when it comes to commenting on other people's areas, but when it comes to their area, suddenly everything doesn't belong to them! Person A says Person B is supposed to do it, Person B say Person C is supposed to do it, Person C says Person A is supposed to do it. Round and round and round... in an infinite loop. Just a small task could get blown into a big argument and finger-pointing.

Giving deadlines is of no use. It's not like these people even read their emails. Or, they read but they don't bother about it.

Case in point : We had a sign-off deadline on Wednesday. Less than half the people signed off on the due date. About 3/4 signed off the day after the due date. On the 2nd day after the due date, I called the remaining people up to remind them. Then I sent a status report to the PM and she escalated it to the CEO. The CEO sent an email to the people who hadn't signed and only THEN did they start trickling in one by one. And one of them even had the cheek to say "Oh, so like this also you all escalate to CEO lah? I'm so busy, you know. You all should call us and remind us." First of all, everyone else is also busy but they still came and did the sign-off. What makes you so special that your level of busy-ness is more important than the rest? And secondly, we DID call! And this particular person said over the phone "Ok Ok, I'll come" and then never showed up. How many times do you want to be reminded? We're not your bloody personal reminder service, ok?!

2. There is Endless Politic-ing and Stabbing Other People in the Back

Some people seem to be so engrossed with making others look bad to make themselves look good. To me, that's quite hard work. I mean, you have to keep thinking of ways to catch people off-guard and find opportunities to "advertise" their weak points. That's a lot of work, you know. So, if these people are so busy politic-ing, who the hell is doing the work?! No wonder things don't get done.

And some people are so vocal to us (my dept) about their displeasure of other people, and say that we don't have the guts to stand up to other people (we do, but only to certain things that we are in the position to respond to). But when we tell them to write an official email to respond to the other party's comment coz they've got the right to do so, they chicken out and send the email to us without addressing it to the other party, expecting US to do the dirty job for them!! WTF?! You say we got no guts but then you do the same! Geez!

Gawd, I feel like I'm dealing with a bunch of babies at work! And we haven't even started the major part of the project yet! Haish!