David McCoy

To my beloved Fatima:

Thank you for your most recent, plaintive email.  I am crushed to the soul to learn of your father’s death.  Your country has suffered so much, in such a short time.  By my rough count of the emails I have received, this is your 23rd Minister of the Interior to die in a violent plane crash just this month.  Please do say hello to your brother, Kareem, whose email I have also just received, announcing the same.  It is endearing as to how you both make the same spelling mistakes, but I would be rude to discuss that at this time. 

While your father’s death is tragic, it is fortuitous that he was such a good saver.  As I understand it, he – like the previous 22 Ministers of the Interior this month – saved 12 million dollars, all denominated in my country’s currency.  I commend your government on its liberal approach to civil servant salaries and currency exchange!  However, I find great fault with your banking system.  That 23 government officials should each have to use Buster Brown shoe boxes to store such wealth is appalling.  By the by, I had always considered Florsheim and Red Goose Shoes as the most popular footwear in your country.  Perhaps Buster Brown has a special for Ministers of the Interior?

Well, to get to the heart of your letter, dear lady, I will indeed be your friend. As I understand it, if I send you a cashier’s check for $200, you will endow me with 50 percent of the total $12 million. By my calculation, that will yield a net profit of $5,999,800.00 to me.  This, as you hint, is a substantial increase over my current annual situation, and I cannot imagine what I am about to suggest.

As your true friend, I could never accept such a large sum, knowing that you and your brother Kareem would be denied your father’s full largess.  As a process management expert, I have consulted with my friends and believe I have a better solution.  Since your main concern is expatriating the money in a safe and efficient manner, that can be done for a fraction of the costs you have been quoted. There is a respected business process outsourcer that operates in your region: International Processes On-Line.  If you will provide them with the full details of your transaction (forwarding them this email as way of introduction), I promise they will meet with you – even coming to your home if needed – and set you up for life!  They take great interest in these cases.  Oh, you can use Google to obtain their contact information.  Please look them up by their convenient acronym – INTERPOL.

As for myself, I seek no compensation.  What I would like to do is write a case study on your government’s cabinet appointment process.  For a country to be able to appoint and install 23 Ministers of the Interior within a single month is a most fantastic display of process agility.  I believe that such a case study would win any competition that I enter, including the highly respected Gartner BPM conference competition that is on-going now.

My beloved Fatima.  I do cherish your emails.  Please continue to write and please do one thing for me?  Take the bus.  Your national airline is a disaster.