Local may be lekker, but it's not cost-effective

What I missed in real life, I made up for in my dreams! Whee, what a strange night! I dreamed that I had to find a secret place for Silver to safely give birth, because predators were hunting her unborn kittens. I was driving through some strange town, circling around a block with a Pizza Restaurant. The building was across the road and it was covered in yellow plastic, because there was some maintenance in progress. But that made it safe, since nobody would suspect anyone inside. My sister and I had arranged to meet in an upstairs flat. Funny how my sister is such a frequent visitor in my dreams, eh? In most of my dreams, we’re as close as we were as children. Anyway, she was waiting in the flat and I had sneaked past the plastic cover through the door. I’ve reserved a whole floor of flats for the next project – yeah, that was a jump from one dream-reality into another! The guys were all staying in their respective flats and I had to push a tire along the road with some soldier sitting on the tire. I push him downhill past the flats and let go so he’s speeding away – and I get to the flat where my sister is waiting. Don’t ask – I never said there was any sense in the dream! Two kittens were born, both without any fur. One fine and one badly deformed. It had some of it’s organs on the outside. At that point I fortunately woke up!

Silver lying by my feet on the feather duvet. Still pregnant. She went outside for a quick run while I had my coffee, but was snug on her chair when I left for work.

Walking past the flower bed I see more new flowers in bloom! I’m hoping to be able to take some photos tonight. I haven’t taken any all week for various reasons.

At work I spent the last two hours trying to check an invoice from a supplier. How can that take two hours, you ask? Well, let’s start with the invoice itself: Instead of putting the numbers into the prescribed columns – you know ‘Quantity’ ‘Price per unit’ etc. it’s all written in essay format under ‘Description’. So one has to check the calculation for starters. Then, they provide justification in the form of ‘Hours worked per week’ sheets – instead of the normal time sheets. When asked to provide justification, how they arrived at those hours – I get clocked times. So, basically, I had to re-do every single time sheet – hoping to arrive at the same hours. Predictably, I didn’t. So I, the client, spend two hours re-doing the suppliers work, so that they can get paid. Why bother? Well, what choice do we have, really? Think about it – what are the chances of getting to ‘professional documentation’ here?

The South African economy is really loosing out a lot through a) their unprofessional methods and b) overcharging outrageously when they hear the client is International. So it’s a lot more cost-effective for International companies to manufacture at home and ship to South Africa. Ditto labour. So International companies use only the absolutely unavoidable amount of local content – as decreed by law. Most South African companies charge as much as International companies for their labour – which on the surface sounds fair. Until you take into consideration that International companies have to fly their staff to- and from South Africa plus pay their accommodation, car rental and a daily living rate. And that inflated rate stays with the South African company. Most of the companies pay their staff local rates – even though they charge international rates.

Ah well, enough of that. Had a lovely tour through the garden with my neighbour tonight! Such a lot of flowers everywhere and so many more buds promising to bloom soon! I took loads of photos, but you’ll have to wait till tomorrow for me to post them. I fear a lot will be mowed down again tomorrow, the garden disservice is due again.

Silver widdled on the bathroom mat. Sigh. Well, she’s got the right room at least. I’ve added more potting soil to the litter box – she obviously doesn’t recognise the pellets as widdling absorbent. She stayed around for quite some time, then dark sliver showed up, munched, explored and Silver went out. That was hours ago, now I want to go to bed, and Silver is still out. I’m not taking chances on going back into Zombie-mode, so I’m going to sleep.