Lost in Translation

Imagine I end you an email - in English.

You don't speak English BUT you have a translator, so the message is translated into, say, Rumanian. You then read it and forward it to a friend.

Your friend doesn't speak Rumanian, BUT he has a translator too, so the message is translated into, say, Arabic. He reads it and then forwards it to another friend.

The second friend reads Arabic but has a couple of questions about the message and he sends it back to me only it arrives in binary code. I don't have a translator for binary code in any language and since the message has been interpreted in multiple languages, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense anymore.

I call the second friend for clarification on his questions and he reads to me from a book of instructions that I've never seen and has been translated from Chinese. I then call the author of the instruction book but it goes right to voice mail and the call is never returned.

Several weeks or months later, I get a memo demanding to know why I haven't straightened this out.

And this is how the health insurance game is played.