I actually hesitated before posting that second, follow-up message re: approvals. I don't want to come across as "bragging" or trying desparately to impress, but do want to establish some credibility on the matter before speaking. I'm glad it came across as intended.

I tend to do this on issues that I actually KNOW about, but all must recognize that my experience may differ wildly from the reality of the corporations in question. I even experienced that phenomon in my career. With regard to approvals, while GM->Hughes->SBRC (the sub I worked for) delegated approval authority to remove bottlenecks, Raytheon (which bought out GM/Hughes defense business) had a "decisions made from the top" philosophy where even relatively small dollar financial/performance commitments had to approved at the very top (small stuff - $5M proposals). I was frankly shocked, and the bottleneck and associated frustration in trying to just get a job done was very apparent, very fast. But we still managed to make it happen.

FWIW,

SGE