Red Tape

A part of working at Big Time Consulting is incurring expenses, while I have been in India I have incurred my fair share of expenses.  In order to get reimbursed for all these expenses on the 15th and last day of every month all Big Time Consulting employees have to make copies of all their receipts and the bar coded envelope that they use to mail them in before dropping this envelop in the mail.  Although annoying, this is pretty easy to do, when in the United States.    

Since Big Time Consulting is an global consulting firm you would think this would be pretty easy to execute while at Big Time Consulting Mumbai Office.  This has not been the case.  At every US Big Time Consulting office you will find stacks upon stacks of expense envelopes, one type for mailing expenses from inside the United States and one type for mailing expenses from outside the United States.  On September 30th I walked over to the Facilities and Services office at the Mumbai office and asked for some international expense envelopes so I could mail my expenses.  Of course, they had no idea what I was talking about.  Apparently you can only get international expense envelopes while you are physically in a domestic Big Time Consulting office.  I placed an order to have said international expense envelopes mailed to me at the hotel and finally 15 days after they were mailed I got them!   

Today after I xeroxed my receipts and envelopes I headed to the mail room in the office to drop off my envelopes and finally put an end to the "Missing Expense Notice" emails I have been receiving for the last couple weeks.  The first guy I spoke to told me I needed a charge code to mail this envelope (because we are Big Time Consulting we like to charge ourselves internally too!).  I showed him the envelope and explained that the postage would be paid by the addressee, so I didn't need to buy any postage.  He waves over his boss at this point. His boss takes a look at my envelope and says he need to make a phone call.  He calls someone and tells me to wait the person he called is on his way.  After a few minutes guy number 3 comes over and takes a look at my envelopes and makes a call to another guy.  Guy number 3 and guy number 4 confer on the telephone for a few minutes in Hindi, with a sprinkle of the English phrases that are written on the envelop: "No postage necessary if mailed to the United States;"  "International business reply mail;" "Postage will be paid by addressee."      

After the details of the envelope were discussed, I was told: 

"These envelopes are only for mailing things in the US.  You need a charge code to send this."
 
To which I replied:  
"But, it says 'International Business Reply, Postage Paid'" 
 
At this point guy number 3 smiles and responds:  
"I know. [Long Pause] But, I need a charge code for every letter."
 
I guess you can't fight the Big Time Consulting red tape, even in India.