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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zeta1961 who wrote (46311)	2/15/2004 4:27:22 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Zeta, back in the day, the USSR supporters were interwoven in the fabric of Britain. There were spies all over the place like a rash. They were lining up 10s of thousands of noocular bombs for delivery to a city near near you. There were noocular bomb shelters, Dr Strangelove and lots of jokes. There's a difference between joking and treating the enemy as a joke. <The US was complacent and thought Al Q was "a joke" couldn't do us any harm > The arrogance of the USA is to be contemptuous of others, including opposition. Being really dour, serious, worried and fearful and lacking a sense of humour isn't going to improve the position. Sense of humour is best in serious situations. There's much more fun to be had when things are bad. Here are a couple of things I'm reminded of. Once upon a time, while I was working for Castrol, they had lost quite a few important customers because [in part] of pricing decisions. I had been unable to rescue a major customer after I'd warned Castrol that provoking a price challenge would be too risky to chance. Mobil got the business. The customer gave us every chance to maintain the position, but it was too late [we couldn't compete on price, having started the fight]. We ended up offering a lower price than we had been getting before we started the fight, but that wasn't good enough by quite a distance. Anyway, there was a regional meeting, with about 20 or 30 people in the lunchroom while the Managing Director was making a presentation and discussing business and all the normal stuff [which was very boring for most of the people whose jobs and aspirations didn't involve the information, but they knew about the customers]. He said, while discussing Castrol's competitive position, "We are not going to lose any more customers". I commented "I haven't got any left to lose", and the room burst out with laughter [there was some tension due to the nature of the MD and the topics under discussion and being cooped up listening to all this stuff, much of which they wouldn't have understood or been interested in]. The MD sternly said "That's not funny!" But it obviously was, because everyone laughed. Everyone gulped and went back to being very serious and po-faced. Another situation was in a cancer ward, where our 21 year old son was being treated with CHOP [cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, vincristine and prednisone] to cure non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which on first diagnosis has a 30% survival rate. That's like Russian roulette with 3 chambers, two of which have bullets. Watching this stuff go into your son's veins is not exactly the best time of life. My brain is deeply etched with various aspects of the situation. Seeing him repeatedly vomiting and dehyrated and bald and washed out and generally not all that great and probably going to die isn't what one hopes for when they are young. The room was full of people who were in the same sort of situation. Some were already doomed, but still having treatment to salvage some quality of life and delay the evil day. But people be as cheerful as can be and live the day in the company of those around them. One of the nurses was talking about her strapping great 6 not 3 inch young son who was being a naughty young man; not always fully behaving as a mother likes her son to be. Not bad or anything. Just leaving his room a mess, not doing this that or the other. I forget what the gripes were. We were just chatting. So I suggested she give him some CHOP. Everyone there got the point and burst out with laughter. Which isn't that they were laughing at people with cancer, or the son, or the nurse. Nobody said "That's not funny" because they could all see that it was [and wasn't actually the boss who was responsible for the pricing decisions which led to losing customers]. So cheer up. The end of the world hasn't happened yet and isn't going to end because of Al Qaeda. Yes, the terrorists are still trying to get me and they might well succeed. I don't see why I have to be miserable and serious while they try. Having a laugh doesn't mean you aren't serious about the situation. Life's a giggle, [according to my 86 year old mother in law and I'm inclined to agree with her] Mqurice