Americans eat paper and ink, dollar bills, bureaucratic paralysis

[fpb]

Seriously. They must feed on them. That is the only explanation of their business practices. A British or Italian translation agency will get in touch, describe the job, ask whether I'm available, and leave me to it till delivery. But with Americans, I am not even allowed to read the document before I have got through two or three pieces of formal, elaborate paperwork; which, given that most outsourced translation work tends to be needed urgently, can be a nuisance. I recently had to give up a last-minute job because the damned paperwork was cutting into it too much.

Comments

[elegant-bonfire.livejournal.com]

Lawyers, we has way too many. Everything has to be in writing to fend off lawsuits. I worked with a guy at Macy's who was so horrid and rude to customers he actually drove them away. He was notorious in a city of 60,000 people. It took 4 years to fire this assmonkey, because that's how much paperwork they had to have on him in order not to get sued for wrongful termination.