Closing Remarks

Advice on ‘Be Careful what you ask for’ (Bogotá mountain)
January has been far too political for me to comment on events such as Forrest Trump and his
inauguration, Vladimir the Impalor and his views on Russian prostitutes and Mother Theresa 2
defining the future direction of the UK.
Otherwise it was a quiet month so I have gone back into the archives of my experiences for this
week’s advice session. I learnt this gem of wisdom when I first went to live in Latin America. Here is
the context.
My office was on the 15th floor of the World Trade Center in Bogotá. Out of the window was a
mountain top at about 3500 metres above sea level. I had only been in Colombia for a couple of
weeks. On the summit, I could see a bunch of telecommunications kit including aerials and
antennae. My job was IT Director for BP Latin America. In Colombia we were licenced to operate a
private telecommunications service (there was no ubiquitous BT equivalent at that time). My IT
Operations Manager told me that the equipment on top of the mountain was under my
accountability linking BP Colombia to the rest of world via satellite link to Houston and across
Colombia by microwave transmitters placed on strategic line-of-site hilltops to make the data and
voice connections.
In three days’ time I had visitors arriving from San Diego, California. I asked my IT Operations
Manager to arrange a visit to the hilltop to inspect the installation and arrange a barbeque on the
summit. Sounded straightforward.
The day arrived, the visitors and I went down to street level and a motorcade of 4 wheel drive
vehicles was waiting. We had security vehicles in front and behind. We made our way out of the city
northwards. Beyond the housing the road turned to a gravel track. As we started to climb the
mountain I noticed the whole hillside was occupied by military style armed security guards. The
mountain was guarded for the duration of my visit. We reached the summit and the modest
barbeque I had envisaged had become Cinderella-like a magnificent feast under tented canopies
served by waiters in bow ties and smart uniforms.
We had a lovely afternoon overlooking the whole of the city. However I had no idea what was
involved to fulfil my simple request and I learnt that day to make sure any agreement between two
parties is understood by both. This is especially true when culture and language are involved. The
word barbeque can have a variety of connotations.
So the advice this week is ‘Be careful what you ask for’ if you don’t fully understand the situation’.