Part of my job function is to manage supplier quality in my company’s high speed manufacturing plant. Today, 2 of my supplier’s top management guys (with 1 of my regular engineer contact) paid me a scheduled visit for a ‘relationship renewal’. No … they did not have sex with me … we’re all straight guys. They sort of paid me a visit (all the way from Taiwan) for a great lunch … and also to make sure their business are all in good hands.

As both of them are top management guys (an MD and a manager), I was suppose to get my boss to handle them. But coincidentally, Pete was in Ireland for some business trip (which was suppose to be me doing that…. that motherfucker..) and SaltedFish was busy handling some other group of visitors.

That literally translates to “I eat my fucking self” … I’ll have to babysit these 3 Taiwanese top management guys myself. Fine. So, off we went for a great lunch and came back into business by 2 pm. In one of the session, I presented some of our high-tech-engineering-classified-not-suppose-to-know-report to impress the shit out of them. Well … they were impressed needless to say … until I switched to my email program to look for some of my important files.

Now, as most of you would probably have encountered, we always have those kind of friends who would not be ashamed to send you some non-work related stuffs. Especially those lewd pictures of half/full naked promiscuous tarts doing some wank inducing pose to distract you off your work. That’s exactly what happened today.

Alright, back to me and top management guys. When I switched my screen to my email inbox to look for that important file, something outstanding caught my eyes (which I believe, caught those Taiwanese’ eyes too). A forwarded informal email sent by one of my friends. Here’s the picture of it (i obscured the other mails for confidentiality’s sake…):

If you couldn’t see it properly, it’s an unread email (bolded) with the title “How to poison your mother in law”. I do not know whether to laugh or cry at that particular moment. Usually, I would archive my informal mails for later reading but apparently, I left out that one today … and somehow got into this situation.

I immediately switch the screen to another — hoping that those Taiwanese did not see that embarassing email. It seems that they did not … but I swear that I actually caught one of the sniggered when I was looking away.

Lesson learnt : Never ever open your email in front of others

I was a bit free at work today… so I browsed my archive to burn some time & I found one interesting email that was the first time me and my buddies coined the name ‘BOD’ (Board of Directors) for our group. You see, whenever we are all at work, we would usually send short emails to each other discussing about our plans for the weekend - something like, “apa kangtau saturday?”… “where are we going to float this weekend?”… most of the time, full of censored language. Then, I started to notice that my buddy Henry, he always changes the email subject to a somewhat formal title and replied all our correspondence with office level formality. His excuse? He was afraid that his boss would cream his ass for using the company email for private business. The ones full of fucks & asses were especially detrimental. One day, I decided to play along:
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From: Ooi, Michael
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 9:21 AM
To: Luis; ‘henry’
Subject: URGENT: Request for schedule of meeting
Importance: High

Dear Mr henry and Luis
Would appreciate if you can confirm the activities that we are going to roll out tonight, as I would desperately like to know the schedule planned for tonight’s meeting. The intention is to allow me to pre-arrange my working hours to cater for the above-mentioned function.

Forehand, I have been pre-informed by Mr Luis that we are going to have Tony as company for the above function - with a bottle of Chivas for the occasion. As far as I understand, we may face a lot of inconveniences and difficulties if the Chivas were to be brought along into the Canto meeting room. As a result of that, we may need to meet-up in a separate venue before the meeting - bak kut teh , or animal’s corner.

Would appreciate your prompt response on this matter

With regards
Michaelooi
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*Luis replied:

From: Luis
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 10:12 AM
To: Ooi, Michael; ‘henry’
Subject:RE: URGENT: Request for schedule of meeting

Good morning everyone.

As per discussion with our Thai representative, Mr. Henry - nothing is confirmed yet as of now. Our organizer Tony still hasn’t give me a call to finalize the time and venue. So, I guess we still need to wait for our boss, Tony as he is having the ultimate agenda for the meeting - CHIVAS -

But it still will be at night as usual, Director Michael, and what time will you be available? Do keep in touch for the plan tonight.

Regards, Luis
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and that was how the BOD (Board Of Directors) was born. Our way of communication was never the same again.
Here are some explanation to aid your understanding for certain confusing words:
Chivas - a 40% alcohol beverage (whisky) made by Chivas Brothers.
Canto meeting room - a pub in Penang.
bak kut teh - a cafe in Gurney drive … we usually test our livers there.
animal’s corner - a kopitiam in Macalister Rd, Penang. My friend - animal…his dad owns a stall there … that was why we named the place animal’s corner.