Business Asian Style

Yesterday I decided I wanted to have a suit dry-cleaned before my working week starts on Monday. What I didn't know is that for some reason dry-cleaning here still takes about a week to get done. Pretty much everything else from ordering a cab by phone, having your cable installed to even having an MRI scan happens at the speed of light, but for some reason the mysterious science of dry-cleaning takes more time for the Singaporeans than to build a new part of town (actually that might be one of the things they really do fastest here). The problem was however, I simply did not have that time. The lady of the dry-cleaners told me it would be ready on Monday or Tuesday and they'd give me a call. I asked if there was no way they could get it done any faster, she pointed to racks of clothes behind her and said they were swamped and they really couldn't get it done on time. Then my Asian blood kicked in; "How much does the dry-cleaning cost?" "S$ 13, sir." "Alright fine, I'll give you S$ 20 if you can make sure you can get it done before the weekend." She then took my suit pushed a bunch of clothes aside on the rack so mine was first in line, turned back around with a smile on her face and said "Ok sir no problem, you pick up tomorrow at 5pm?" HAHA isn't that great! In Holland people would probably depict this as a direct bribe, but Asians see it as what the market is prepared to pay for an 'express service' even though at first this doesn't even appear to be an option. I prefer the latter interpretation ;) So people, I'm off to pick up my dry-cleaned and nicely pressed suit now! Bye!