One of the best pieces of career and marketing advice that I have ever gotten was to be nice to people because they never forget a slight. Even the smallest of tiny slights to a colleague can be repaid years later and you may never even know about it. Similarly, if you upset customers, they can be a long time forgetting about it. I read an update this week about some weak drilling results for BP in theGulf of Mexico. Some time on from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP has still not received permission from regulators in theUS to do anything except to shut down failed or old drilling operations. It seems that theUS government has a long memory. It could say that it is worried about drilling safety, but it appears that it is granting plenty of permission to competitors Shell and Chevron, so that can’t be the problem.