One man's meat is another man's poison

Eurodog has been pointing out the evils of reusing medical devices and she reminded me of another "recycling" episode which happened to my Dutch colleague from Paribas. He had gone on holiday alone to Indonesia and was taking a ferry from Bali to Lombok. A techtonic plate lies under the straits between these islands and the sea can sometimes become very choppy. The other hazard is that Indonesia makes economies by buying ferries which are being retired by wealthier nations.
The first part of the voyage went well. Halfway across the straits, the wind got up, the waves followed suit and the old ferry was riding up wave after wave and belly flopping down the other side. The passengers were alarmed, even more so when the back doors sprang open and the water surged in. People grabbed brooms in a panic, frantically brushing out the water whilst others were being seasick. Arjen assisted the men in trying to close the doors. "If I die here," he thought, "Nobody will know what happened to me. I shall simply be a missing person." Fortunately they managed to close the doors and reach Lombok in safety. Arjen was so relieved that he decided to book into an expensive hotel to soothe his nerves. He switched on the television: it was the tail end of the news and to his suprise he saw the outside of our office in London on the screen. He had to wait for the next news cycle to discover why: we were merging with BNP. "Great!" he thought. "On this day, not only have I nearly lost my life, I've almost certainly also lost my job." In fact, he was wrong about that.