The Most Important Thing I Learned in America
I once worked for a company called Frasers Ltd in Johannesburg. My director nominated me for an educational trip to the USA. That was back in the 1980’s. I was surprised to have received such an honour because it was company policy to send staff on those tours after long service. I had only been working for Frasers for just over a year. We were a group of people from different companies taking the guided tour and departed from Jan Smuts International Airport in Kempton Park for the long flight across the Atlantic to Madeira where our jet refuelled. From there it was still a quite a distance to La Guardia Airport in New York. Whilst on the flight I wondered what lay in store for me since I had never travelled so far from South Africa. America was huge compared to my small country but in those days our currency exchange rate was almost 1:1. I knew that technologically they were far ahead of my country and that it would be a big adjustment in terms of size as well. The tour operat