We've made a pretty successful living out of telling people to ignore conventional wisdom, but here's one piece of good ol' fashioned advice that you shouldn't disregard: proper planning prevents piss-poor performance. And, believe us, some organizations have taken that to an extreme that makes us both respect and fear them. Here are six elaborate contingency plans that most people will hopefully never find out about.

6 A Random Bureaucrat Sits Out The State Of The Union Address, In Case Everyone Else Gets Wiped Out

Chuck Kennedy/Executive Office of the President of the United States

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This particular plan sounds like something a Hollywood writer would come up with -- in fact, they just made a Kiefer Sutherland show out of it. It's not a sitcom, unfortunately, but we could honestly see one with this premise.

It all begins with the annual State of the Union address, that time-honored political tradition where members of Congress are afforded the opportunity to kick back, take in a few speeches, and pretend that they wouldn't eat the people on the opposite side of the aisle without a split-second's hesitation. Away from all the glitz and glamour, however, one politician has the honor of being bundled into the back of a (we're sure comfortably furnished) windowless van and held as democracy's insurance policy in case some kind of catastrophe befalls their colleagues.

CNBC

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Known as the designated survivor, this politician -- whose identity remains a secret until shortly before the address -- is sequestered away under heavily armed guard against the possibility that some assholes take the opportunity afforded to them by the address to effectively decapitate the country's leadership. If this happens, the designated survivor assumes the presidency. That is, unless someone more powerful survives or conveniently happened to be out of the country when the shit hit the fan, which, and we're only relying on our knowledge of vintage detective shows here, must automatically make them a suspect, right?

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There's no particular pattern as to who gets the honor -- during Obama's tenure, the designated survivors included Shaun Donovan (Housing and Urban Development), Tom Vilsack (Secretary of Agriculture), Steven Chu (Secretary of Energy), and Jeh Johnson (Secretary of Homeland Security) -- and the only specific requirement is that they be a natural-born citizen. Considering that they also take possession of the "nuclear football" during proceedings, we'd hope that there's also a sanity check, but, frankly, who the fucks knows these days?

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