Working at a corporate institution.

There is a reason why it is called an institution, and most people working at one never think about it.

I am contracting at one of the banks, and after contracting at an international firm for seven years, it feels as if there is this big gap between the section I am working for, and the rest of the bank.  I sometimes wonder if the rest of the bank is based in another reality, with requests that are entered via email being read somewhere and painstakingly copied down on something very durable.  This is then transported by Kevin Costner-like postmen accros the border into this alternate reality, where he wanders from office to office, delivering all these messages.

The answers, when they are ready, are then returned by another postman, scanned and used to generate a return-email.  Because nobody is supposed to know about this, only top management is involved, and this leads to all the problems, because we all know that top management is useless, right?

When I look at the inefficienct way most things are done, at the waste of money, the lack of control, I am sure that most polititians started their careers at one of these institutions.  It will explain a lot.