Have you ever tried to get anything done — report theft, start a business, get a driver’s license — in Eastern Europe? If so, you will appreciate what Alexander Kuzmin, the 33-year old mayor of a Siberian oil town of Megion, is trying to do: make bureaucrats more friendly.
He has banned the following phrases among state employees:
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I don’t know
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I can’t
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What can we do
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It’s not my job
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It’s impossible
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I am having lunch
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There is no money
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I was sick/on vacation
If they banned these in all of Eastern Europe, state employees would become officially mute. And they say Russia is not progressive. Pretty soon, their bureaucrats might even smile!
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