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How was your day? Mine sucked. I shouldn't be writing this, I should be riding my new bike, enjoying the beautiful weather and springtime scenery before a cold front moves in tomorrow. Unfortunately, a forwarder decided to deliver my bike to someone in Belgium who's probably really nervous right now because I received his much more expensive bike. Other than that, one of my company's German suppliers put the wrong country on a declaration of conformity and 4 out of 6 cheap platform scales we calibrated today needed minor repairs because someone in China doesn't know how to fasten a screw.

Of course, your day may have been worse. One of the problems of complaining on the internet is that there's always someone who makes you look like the luckiest person on earth by comparison (->fmylife.com). There's also Perspective Man. That's why we have to look beyond my petty complaints to see a truly fundamental paradigm shift.

Nothing worked as planned.

My bike should have arrived today. Our German supplier should have put the right country on the declaration of conformity. Factory workers in China should have known that if you don't fasten the screws on the PCB correctly, its impossible to press two buttons at once and calibrate the scale. The truth behind my complaints is that nothing worked as planned.

We're all becoming Brazilians.

Brazil. The country of the future. According to Time magazine and many others, this future has finally arrived now. As the world economy collapses, Brazil rises.

Try telling this to someone who actually runs a company in Brazil. I did, and I had the feeling he wanted to teleport through the phone to punch me in the face real hard. After calming down a bit, he explained that the only reason Brazil wasn't immediately affected by the financial crisis is that the financial sector there isn't as "sophisticated" as elsewhere. This, however, doesn't mean the country is immune to the crisis of the "real" economy.

Still, Brazil may be better equipped to deal with this crisis. People are used to crime levels which would paralyze societies in the so called first world. They also know how to improvise.

They have to, because in Brazil, nothing ever works as planned. The only reason you still make plans there is because otherwise you'd eventually forget what your original goal was while you're solving a cascade of problems you didn't foresee.

Like it or not, that's where we're headed. As insolvencies punch holes in just-in-time supply chains, companies lay off competent employees and desperate governments come up with silly new regulations, we'll have to learn how to improvise. Welcome to Brazil. Sans the good weather, beaches and... I better stop here.

Actually useful pieces of information concerning Brazil:

Are you considering emigrating to Brazil to watch the first world burn while sipping a caipirinha on the porch of your self-sufficient fazenda? Two things you absolutely have to know:

1. An investor visa will currently set you back R$ 50.000.
2. Don't ever criticize Brazil or Brazilians in general (e.g. "the food isn't sophisticated, either"). As my former Brazilian leftist math teacher said, "there's no solidarity in this society". She's right, except when the Seleção is playing or when confronting a foreigner who dared to criticize Brazil.