Necessary Evil

I came in to work today to learn that:

a. a police officer pulled over our delivery truck in the middle of South Super Highway because he suspected that we were transporting raw materials for shabu production (they were softeners for laundry use).

b. custom officers are delaying the release of our shipment again by ordering us to pay additional taxes -- even though I know we don't have to.

What's a stressed out boss to do?

I cursed, and called some people, and cursed some more.

What really, really irritated me about the whole thing is that these events are totally beyond our control. After all, I cannot hold a nationwide seminar for the local police force to educate them about the differences between laundry softeners and shabu, can I? And the taxes.... aaaargh!!! THE TAXES!!! I can graduate cum laude with a course on brokerage and still not understand the logic behind all the taxes Custom slapped on us. Tax for this... tax for that.. tax for that one too.... AAARGH! Those are not taxes... they're TONGS! Tong for merienda, tong for lunch, tong for their new cellphone. It's hard to compute for the cost of imported goods, when each shipment entails new err... "taxes"! Whenever I see the head of Custom on television, gleefully announcing to the nation that they have gone beyond their forecasted collections, I want to scream -- the collections came from honest, innocent importers, dammit! To add insult to injury, I hear of smug smugglers who are able to get away with taxes and everything -- just because they have the right connections and bribe the right people.

I have to unlearn everything I have ever believed in during my younger years -- that hard work is all one really needs to succeed in life. No! No! No! To get anywhere in life, at least in this country, one needs to learn the crude and crass art of corruption.

I am learning this the hard way -- the corrupt lifestyle is not a choice, it's a necessity.

With that shabu-on-the-truck incident, did I have a choice? Okay, I could've stood my ground and insisted that the goods aren't related to shabu production, allowed the police to call the press and blow the whole incident up. With the tax incident, I could've let them delay the release of the goods for one month, never mind that the goods are badly needed, and we will incur demorrage, storage fees and handling costs in the process.

But what kind of choices are those? Those are idiotic choices, and would probably earn me the title "Dunce of the Century."

So I opted for the corrupt "choice" instead. Notice, I did not type "corrupt lifestyle." I bribed. I bribed the police officers and the custom officers. This is not the first time I did it. But I always think and hope that it will be my last.
I am not yet that jaded and cynical to wholeheartedly embrace a corrupt lifestyle.

But I'm afraid I'm getting there.