They were a software company in Belarus. We called them and they were anxious to work for us. The boss liked us so much, he offered to pick me up at the airport when I visited. By the way, just for the record — if you do business in Eastern Europe, Belarus is by far the most friendly and hospitable country that has software development companies. We found the Ukrainians to be a little bit snobby and the Russians gave us a bad feeling.
In any case, we asked this Belarus Software Company to do a quick bid for us. They got the bid back to us very quickly. They wanted triple the necessary amount of hours to do a very simplistic programming job for us. We told them that the bid was not realistic. He became very emotional. He started raising his voice, showing signs of despair, asking “Why, why why?”. He really wanted our job, but his hour padding policy didn’t seem ethical or cost effective to us.
I remember that when I talked to my assistant we had a quick conversation about this boss. My assistant said that he was very hospitable and that I should work with him. I told my assistant that I want to see how hospitable he is six months after we are doing business. Well, we found out that in two days his hospitality went down the drain!
Another interesting story from Belarus!
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