Two men were boasting to each other about their old army days.
"Why, my outfit was so well drilled," declared one, "that when they presented arms all you could hear was slap, slap, click."
"Very good," conceded the other, "but when my company presented arms you'd just hear slap, slap, jingle."
"What was the jingle?" asked the first. "Oh," replied the other offhand, "just our medals."
This speaks a lot about the Japanese quality standards and also cultural misunderstandings.
They're still laughing about this at IBM. Apparently the computer giant decided to have some parts manufactured in Japan as a trial project. In the specifications, they set out that they will accept three defective parts per 10,000 .
When the delivery came in there was an accompanying letter. "We, Japanese people, had a hard time understanding North American business practices. But the three defective parts per 10,000 have been separately manufactured and have been included in the consignment.
2007-07-30
12:03:33
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Anonymous