Jewish jokes and Chinese business, or It's all a joke!

You know that joke about the guy marrying nice Jewish girl? It goes like this:

“The guy rushes into the surgeon's office:
– Doctor, please castrate me! It's urgent!
After trying to persuade the guy not to make drastic decisions, the doctor does the operation.
While washing hands afterward, he asks:
– Pray tell me, what made you to do this?
– Why, there's that nice Jewish girl I'm going to marry, and they have that custom...
Doctor pales and asks in small voice:
– So you needed the circumcision?
– Why, yes! Wait... what did I ask for?”

And this joke is a perfect model of the way one of my suppliers communicate. Like the day before yesterday when he called me saying: "We're shipping your container on Monday!"


Now, you may consider it a good thing. It usually is a good thing. But not this time. The container in question is a part of a cancelled order which this supplier was told to merge with the order following it. He agreed... and went happily to book the container. Then he called me to report on this glorious achievement.

"Why, oh why you do it?" –I asked him.
"We need to make room to store your next order!" – the guy answered happily.
"But didn't we agree to include the stuff in the next order?!"
"Oh... so that's what you were meaning by 'including in the next order', now I get it!"
"Yes, that's precisely what we wanted... and what you have agreed to... and will you be able to finish that next order on time?"
"Oh, we'll try our best!"
At this point, I thanked the wisdom of the person who invented the MUTE button on the phone. It's for swearing, people, just for that!
"Now, you don't try, you just do! And start writing things down if you forget them, OK? Bye!"

And this conversation is typical with the guy. Always the same genuine surprise: "Is this what we have agreed upon? So I really have to ship the stuff on time? You really mean I can't ship sub-standard goods?" And he looks so honest while asking that you just forget all the swearwords you were preparing. It'll be like kicking a puppy...