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 Last week a representative of the fire department showed up at the new DDP office to check on our fire extinguishers. We had had two in our old two-floor building, and now, he said, we need more than that for our five-floor building. Today he came back and we bought three more so there would be one on each floor. Last week the man had requested we buy from him at $20 a unit although we knew we could get them cheaper from a local company. The fireman admitted he got a cut if we bought from him. |
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 Today when the fireman came back, Kim, our DDP program manager, negotiated the cost down to $16 a unit and we went ahead with that. We might have bought them for a dollar or two cheaper at the store, but then we would have had to pay more than in extortion to get them approved for the office. That's just the way business is around here. To get a little more for our money, we asked the fireman to give our staff a demonstration of how the extinguishers should be used. The woman on the right is Vichet, our sign language interpreter. |
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