Thursday, July 15, 2010

an untold "joke"

Last week, we were having some trouble clearing cement from customs. I ended up talking to managers and supply chain people here in an attempt to get it cleared as soon as possible. I followed it up with an e-mail on what was expected based on the conversations I had. It was a somewhat aggressive e-mail, but this was important for us. Here’s the part of the e-mail at the end that I took out:

”I know this has been a pretty serious e-mail so I’ll end with a joke. Question: What happened to the cement company that ran out of cement? Answer: They went out of business and people lost their jobs. Oh wait, that’s not funny at all. Get my damn cement out of customs.”.

I assume it’s self-explanatory why that part of the message never made its way into the final e-mail. Customs clearance is the bane of my existence here. No, wait. It’s one of many banes of my existence.

2 comments:

Mike said...

While I'm not particularly involved with it, our company is having very similar issues in India; not with cement, though.

Anonymous said...

Exit of BP CEO

Away from your joke, per this article, I feel sorry for BP CEO. He has led BP for many good profitable years. You really cannot blame this accident entirely on BP. But BP takes full financial responsibility for clean up and other compensations. What happens to the Great American Company evading taxes and hide in Switzerland, Transocean? Is this company responsible for anything at all after taking a large sum of insurance money?

This CEO really needs a good PR guy and learns some American lingo. Look at all the financial messes from Wall Street. No one takes responsibility for this big screw-up, because they know how to shift the blame!