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16 April 2010

Supply Chains

This may be difficult to follow, but bear with me.

Today I sent the following email to a colleague:

"We can't expect the supplier to pay for $1 million insurance. They are only providing $300k in services. "

My email is effectively saying:

1. I am selling my customer a car and you are my steering wheel supplier.
2. No matter what the problem is, if the car doesn't work I need to replace it.
3. However, if the problem is the steering wheel then I still need to replace it but will recover these costs back from you.

My colleague took my advice, played with it a bit and sent the following email to our supplier:

"Hearing form you about the INSURANCE value, we need back to back with client us$ 1M.
understanding that it is not fair for you, the min of BID BOND is based on our spending to you.
That is Min requirement but we expect you accept us$ 1M. Pls be advice? thanks"

If it wasn't incomprehensible it would be ridiculous. Effectively, my dear friend has told our supplier that.

1. If the entire car doesn't work, we have to replace the whole thing.
2. In all fairness, the maximum we could really ask you to replace is the steering wheel. I mean, we know you just supply the steering wheels ...
3. However, we are just wondering if you wouldn't mind just paying for the whole car to be replaced, even if it's not your fault. Is that ok?"

The 10am Deadline I Worked All Night To Meet


09:00 Good morning everyone. Is Ahmed there? Where is Ahmed?

Actually he called this meeting at this time to review his document so he needs to be here. It's the only thing missing before we can send this all out.

Let me call him.

09:15 [ring ring] Ahmed? Are you here?.

Where are you?

OK well how bad is the traffic then ...? Alright thanks. See you in 5.

09:30 Can anyone get through to Ahmed? His phone isn't answering.

09:31 Voicemail left.

09:32 SMS sent

09:30 Can anyone get through to Ahmed? His phone still isn't answering. Is he in the office?

10:05. Did anyone hear from Ahmed?

10:07. You saw him having a cigarette downstairs? Are you serious?

10:10 Hi Ahmed. The meeting did not happen yet because you were not there.

Did you finish that document yesterday at 2pm as promised? No? Why not? Well when do you think it will be finished? Ok then we'll look at it at midday is that OK?

Remember you promised the client to sent it at 10 this morning.

Yes ok that's good. See you then.

12:05 [ring ring] Has anyone seen Ahmed? We were supposed to meet. His phone isn't answering

12:07 Voicemail left.

12:12 SMS sent

13:15 Has anyone seen Ahmed? His phone still isn't answering.

What do you mean by "Friday prayer"? When will he be back?

Why 2pm? What's "Fridayprayerfollowedbylunch?" Is this a religious practice?

Oh. Right. Just hungry then.

Someone's Having A Riot ...

... and I wasn't invited.

No one even told me that this was going on outside today:


I mean ... how the fuck would I know? ... it's not visible from the Starbucks at the Plaza Indonesia innit?

We were working back late and someone said "Hey - have there been riots today?", to which my colleague replied "Oh yeah - I think some people are unhappy with destroying the tombs." but I think it was an issue of nomenclature.

If my President was called Bambang I would riot as well.