I'm working at a national Japanese research agency with several thousand researchers. The administrative overhead is probably close to 50% (as in, half the jobs

I'm working at a national Japanese research agency with several thousand researchers. The administrative overhead is probably close to 50% (as in, half the jobs here are in administration). It's only for a 3 month research project that I'm here, yet I had to fill out somewhere between 15 and 20 forms (no exaggeration) - twice actually, once scanned and sent by e-mail and once again by hand when I came here (because the scanned version wasn't 'original' enough). It's mind boggling to the extreme. I could sit down and make a simple DB application with Word / Excel export to generate all that stuff with unified interface in a day or two, which would save them literally hundreds if not thousands of man hours a year - but I don't think they really care so much about efficiency here. They really want to see the stuff all filled in by hand, there is some kind of inherent value there that I don't seem to understand. Oh and the rules for business trips, allowances, relocation coverage and all that, don't get me started on them. It's a good experience though, makes me all the more motivated to have my own startup soon, instead of going nuts in big organisations like these.