Stay alert

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat – and suddenly you can no longer remember who was chasing your or which mountain you fell off?
I do sometimes. The cause: stress...or so they say, but I don’t believe them. I most recently had a bad dream after the OSV Golf Day, during which I’d played well and even won a prize (the ‘longest drive’ among the ladies – which wasn’t hard, because I was the only lady there...). I’d really had a very relaxing day.

But sometimes you don’t even need to be asleep to get caught up in a nightmare. Someone recently told me a (true) story that made me shiver – and I know it’s not a one-off occurrence. It was about a big order for an existing client. The order was input into the system and the process got underway to ensure that this loyal customer received his products on time, and they were soon ready for dispatch. Just before the truck was loaded, the supplier received a phone call: ‘Could the delivery be made to a different address?’ Hmmm, the supplier wasn’t accustomed to that kind of request from his customer. He didn’t trust the situation, googled the address and traced it to an old, disused warehouse. That set alarm bells ringing in his mind.

After further investigation and contacting the client, it turned out that the customer hadn’t placed the order at all! Luckily nothing had been delivered, but the goods were ready and waiting to be shipped. If he hadn’t sensed that something was wrong, he could have lost EUR80,000 worth of products, with an insurance claim as his only hope of compensation. It could happen to anyone.

So stay alert...and sleep well.

Saskia Stender