[OT] Corruption

Someone mentioned Mexico. I had a female 
friend (travelling with another female friend) 
take a midnight bus from somewhere to 
somewhere else in Southern Mexico. They were 
the only two bus riders - they didn't think much 
of it, being as it was late. They got stopped by 
the police (which also didn't really setoff any 
alarms, because they are Canadian and our 
Cops are mostly pretty decent) and the driver 
seemed... very disturbed and agitated. The 
police came in and talked with them, asked 
them where they were from, etc. My friend, out 
of spontaneous good nature (she's a peach) 
offered the copper a handfull of Werthers from 
her pocket. The cop seemed taken aback.... but 
flattered. He wished them a good night and 
they carried on. When they got to <insert 
destination, I forget>, people asked them "How 
did you get here?" "Bus." "The Midnight Run?" 
"Yes? (puzzled)" "Oh, Madre Di Dios! Are you 
all right? Were you stopped by the police?" 
"Yes. We chatted with them. I gave the officer a 
Werthers. It wasn't a big deal - why?" "!!!!!! - 
Last night, they stopped the bus, took 
everyone's money, made everyone undress and 
walk into town." "!!!!!!! Oh....!!!!!"

Motto: Always carry a Werthers and offer it to 
those who might mean you harm. (Or perhaps, 
if you are a Tom Baker fan, a Jelly Baby). Of 
course, having a whopping quantity of dumb 
ass luck can't hurt either. 

A comedian was joking about there always 
being one loner/maladjusted guy at each 
workplace, that no one will talk to. He 
mentioned how he'd talk to the guy, bring him 
coffee, give him a chocolate bar, etc. whenever 
he saw him. Why? So that when he finally 
snapped and was raging around the office with 
an AK-47, it'd be "Die you vermin... bang bang 
bang!.... <next office> Die scum....bang bang 
bang.... <next office> Die yo.... errr... wait a 
minute.... that was a damn good coffee... carry 
on....<next office> Die you dirtbag .... bang 
bang bang.... etc."

Despite it being a kind of grim joke, there is a 
grain of truth to it. 

And as a high tech example of corruption:
Working on a project for a government owned 
corporation. We need information from another 
company that works with the government as 
they worked on the last version of this item. 
They are competing with us on some other 
bids, so the channel closes. One of our 
developers knows someone who works there, 
so he calls over and acquires what we want 
through the "old boys and girls network". Of 
course, this would have got the someone in big 
trouble if he or she were caught. Sometimes a 
bit of "corruption" gets the (technical) task 
done when business logic (oxymoron) is 
standing in the way. 

Of course, plenty of other times it results in 
single sourcing of contracts, requirements 
being signed off near the end of the contract 
after the product is developed, assisting the 
client in developing the requirements (of 
course, to the limit of the money they have 
available!), etc. 

No, of course free trade promotes no 
corruption.... (in the government!)......

;) 
----------------------------------------------------
Mr. Thomas Barclay
Software Developer & Systems Analyst
thomas.barclay@stargrunt.ca
----------------------------------------------------