In a meeting with one local official from a region where, myth has is, people eat dog soup for dinner, I bumped into a very awkward situation. This is my first time meeting the official and I started off with the usual chit-chat about the weather. My main objective was to negotiate a permit extension for a business in this guy’s jurisdiction. As per usual, a certain amount of “administration fees” are required to ensure the delivery of the extended permit and again as per usual, I have had my people talk with his people to find out how much the “fees” are.

When I was about to give him the money, he refused and said it wasn’t enough. He demanded more. I told him that I received the information from his people and that, if he still thought it was not enough, he could tell me what the number should be. Even after frank and embarrassing insistence from my part, he didn’t give me his number. So what we have here is a corrupt official who won’t accept money, who kept on implying he wanted the money, but did not tell me how much he wanted. Awkward.

The official then rambled on about how people my age shouldn’t have gone through the corrupt regime his generation has gone through (but that didn’t stop the hypocritical bastard from extorting me!). Needless to say, one of the most awkward meetings of my life ended after 2 hours of conversational nothings and awkward gestures.

Not long after the meeting, the official called one of my people and asked why the negotiation was led by a person so young (me). Apparently, the reason he did not want to say the number was because he wanted to talk to a more “senior” person in the company. My guy then went on to explain our company’s structure and that it couldn’t get any more senior than that. Having been briefed, the official said that he finally understood and quickly blurted out his number: an astronomical five-fold my initial budget.

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