Bureaucratic Red Tape

From shooting assignments at four large companies over the past three weeks:

• For an editorial portrait of an executive, that executive’s telecom company required every e-mail to be cc’d to the following people:

– the photo subject’s executive assistant

– the executive assistant’s assistant

– the director of national marketing and communications

– the communications senior manager

– the public relations senior manager

– legal affairs

– the social media manager

– an outside public relations and marketing agency

– building management

– building security

• Another corporate client had to add me to its vendor list. To do this, the company sent four documents for me to complete. One of these documents was five pages long. The documents were then sent to three people at two sister companies in two countries.

• At one corporate location, I had to go through two sets of security: building security and then company security. Every security gate and most doors required an electronic pass card. Since each employee’s card allowed them through some doors but not others, three employees, each of whom had different pass cards, were needed to escort me to the photo location.

When I finished and was looking around for someone to escort me out, a nearby employee said, “Don’t worry about security. Just use the side door over there. It’s always left unlocked so we can go out for a smoke.” The unlocked side door opened directly onto the city sidewalk.

• Another location had no on-street parking and the nearest public parking lot was about four blocks away. When you have to carry four cases of photo equipment plus two 9-foot rolls of background paper, it’s a good idea to park as close as possible to the assignment. Fortunately the client arranged for me to get a temporary parking pass to its employee parking lot.

The problem was that I had to go into the office building and fill out a form to get the parking pass. But to do that, I had to park somewhere. But to do that, I needed a parking pass. But to get the parking pass I had to go into the building and fill out a form.