International, but not worldy. The true meaning of POOF

The stated aim of this blog was to reflect on the cultural differences that sometimes trip us up when crossing international borders - you think you know what is going on, but in reality it is something quite different.

I hung onto this email from 2003 as one of the prime examples. ePredix, whom I worked for in San Francisco and Minneapolis, were part-owned by a large, successful, global consulting form Personnel Decisions International.

As Australians and kiwis we had a bit of a chuckle at this faux pas, but my time since has given me cause to wonder about the blunders we all made in reverse!

Nice save Cindy Marsh.

Working in America - reflection on safety

Working in the USA was a crazy thing. There was a nasty overlap between an employee's freedom to carry a gun, and the jitters that gave me when I monitored the speed with which pain-killers were consumed from the lunch-room in the Costco industrial packs of Panadol - let alone the valium, Ritalin and a million other pharmaceuticals that got the team through the day.

While in Minneapolis, the gun law was changed in some electoral skullduggery to allow concealed handguns to be carried. We foreigners never felt safe again.

As always - crappygraph.com comes to the rescue with a simple illustration of the problem!