Business practices of large international companies - advice for new colleagues

After XXX was taken over, the only thing that mattered was markup. Project managers received training in manipulating and misleading translators. We were told that translators were overpaid fat cats and a good pay cut was long overdue. We were also told that we should justity the low rates offered by telling translators that all payments would originate from the US, and as a consequence could not be traced by the Dutch Tax Office. So the recommended way for making up for pay cuts was to dodge taxes.

We were required to work about ten hours'overtime every week (unpaid) and were bullied if we dared to question the decisions made by the new management. Within the span of a year, the majority of my colleagues had left. They were replaced by very young, inexperienced and unqualified starters, mainly from countries with high unemployment (Spain, for instance) or from countries such as Russia or China. The idea behind this (YYY expressly states on XXX's website nowadays that Dutch nationals should not apply) is that foreign workers are more easily handled because they have no prospects in their country of origin or need a job in order to keep their residence permits.

XXX has become a true sweatshop, where employees and suppliers alike are taken advantage of. Turnover among employees and translators is skyhigh. YYY actively discourages any form of postitive relationships between Project Managers and translators because this would make it harder for Project Managers to keep telling lies to people they know. In that sense, the permanent exodus of staff is just a management tool to reach the company's objectives.

In a way, you cannot help admiring YYY for perfecting this diabolical way of operating. This is greed performed to perfection.