Snakes and Ladders

When I was young we played a lot of board games. This was in the ‘old days’ when the BBC had one black and white channel, a telephone was black with a dial and was rarely used and war was a recent memory.

One of the games was Snakes and Ladders. The objective was to climb up the ladders and avoid the snakes – much like life really. Landing on a snake meant that you slid all the way down the snake pretty much back to where you started. But you could win with this game as there was always a ladder that took you almost to the finish.

Now that I am older and a little more cynical, dealing with vendors in the IT industry puts me in mind of Snakes and Ladders, except that the ladders are shorter, the snakes are longer and there is no route to the finish.

This is particularly true of the US-based vendors who manage NZ out of Australia. To make a sweeping generalisation most US-based vendors are inward looking with a very limited view of the globe. Add to that the small size of NZ and we really don’t count. That being the case what have they got to lose by not letting local knowledge and common sense prevail? Nothing you would think, but still they set the board with the standard number of snakes and ladders, and then pass control to the great pretenders in ‘The Lucky Country’.

The general ignorance of this part of the world by the USA (another sweeping generalisation) results in NZ being lumped in with Australia. The Aussies then take the board and make a few small adjustments, like the height of the ladders (very low – much like an underarm ball in cricket), the size of the snakes (unusually long) and location of the finish line (on the back of the board). Then we are invited to throw the loaded dice.

Welcome to the game!