Just the way it is

I know, I know, it's been forever. But until I come up with something better, here's a brief glimpse of part of my daily day, brought about by an upper managerial question concerning how certain "problem areas" we are facing are dealt with at some of our related facilities in other parts of the country.
Asked to check it out at my level of the food chain, I contacted one of my distant counterparts at his equally distant parts counter, and we had a little chat. Lo and behold, things were not much different at his place. So I attempted to enlighten my manager with the following...
They (as do we) sporadically attempt to enforce impractical standards with inadequate personnel, yield to the inevitable for the sake of survival and temporarily fuss about laxness before losing interest in the situation. Then when something trips someone's trigger they return to Point A and start the cycle over, apparently ignoring the common operating definition of insanity by repeating the same actions while expecting a different outcome. It's true, boss... our system really IS perfectly designed to achieve the results we're getting!