Mai pen rai crup, prounced my pen lie cup, is a term that covers lots of stuff. Thus the sentence "There were a lot of mai pen rais in that project." It is akin to Keine schweiss in German, walang pawis in Tagalog, or sans sueur in French. My connotation was that a simple shrug of the shoulders and a mai pen rai crup! Would have negated most of the OP's rants.
The phrase literally means "No sweat." Crup is a phrase added to imply politeness. Since I am a male I said crup. If I had been a female I would have said ka. The masculine phrase is pronounced cup. Thus the humor in the pun that people from southern Thailand are called Dixie Cups. To leave off crup or ka means that one takes away politeness or is downright rude.
All is not as it seems on the surface. I don't know how it is spelled but the word that is pronounced sir means stupid in Thai. So if after your rant someone says "Yes SIR! I'll get on it right away SIR!" with an emphasis on the sir part he is not being complementary. Especially if he leaves off the crup.
Anyway - I hope this clears up my intentions - if not mai pen rai crup........
Until next time - Sa wat dee crup!
the first part is something like "never mind", but I don't get the "crup" thing. 
