Now, this is the real bad news. They can't repair our cameras because
they don't have any spares. Since they always built the same models they
never held a dedicated stock of spares as all the parts they needed for
repairs could be fetched from the production department next door.

Worse still, all their parts were made by external suppliers and they
only assembled the cameras.

Faced with plummeting sales they simply carried on until all parts had
been used up for building cameras and then pulled the plug on their
camera production without any parts left for spares.

I've spoken to the guy running their service department. He has shelves
full of customers' broken cameras and nothing to repair them. When I
asked him what to do, he suggested sending him all broken cameras so he
could pile them up and convince their CEO to have another batch of parts
made. Hair-raising, isn't it?

Sounds like a story from another world and indeed it is as it goes a
long way towards explaining the mentality still prevalent in what used
to be socialist East Germany. Twenty years on, they're still as
fatalistic as they were then. No wonder they're gobbling up billions of
West German taxpayers' money without any progress to show for it.

Ralf