Managing Expectations

Another thought-provoking post from Jan Chipchase – this time from Cairo. It’s about managing expectations in foreign situations, and being aware.

Reminds me of the time I went on a business trip for Shell to Cartegena in Columbia and being met by the Computing Manager at the small airport. His driver had a slight bulge under his left armpit, and I thought, hmm.

The Hilton hotel had been bombed a month before and two days after my arrival, the airport runway was blown up by guerillas. The pilot of the Shell plane announced that there was 1500 feet of usable runway left, and he could take off with 1350 feet. I remember thinking that 150 feet didn’t sound like an enormous margin for error. Still, as you can surmise, I lived to tell the tale.