I woke up this morning, scoured the paper, and discovered that those 4 dozen cookies I bought for my team are going to go to waste because it's ramadan. Typical of this place, I searched on line until midnight last night to find out if it was going to be ramadan or not (although they can predict the date scientifically and make it easier for everyone to plan around, they prefer to do it the old fashioned way so you can't plan anything) but apparently the decision wasn't made and broadcast until after I went to bed (and they would have known at 8 pm if it was going to start or not).
No eating, drinking (of anything), gum chewing, smoking, or even taking medications during the daylight hours. Today was a miserable day at the office as I'm fighting a cold still and I was coughing every 5 minutes because my throat is sore and I'm not allowed to drink water. Combine that with the 122 degree heat...it pretty much sucks.
Though ramadan is a holy month, and fasting is supposed to be a sign of dedication to the faith, what it boils down to is:
-eating way too much at iftar and staying up all night
-being super cranky at work from lack of sleep, food, fluid and nicotine
-an increase in traffic accidents
-people buying excess food and presents when the stores are open in the evenings
-a decrease in the economy since people are working less hours
My old hotel at least had an area blocked off for us non believers to smoke or eat during the day away from the eyes of the cops. But the intercon does not have such an area so I've had to make a smoking area in my shower that blocks the smoke from getting into my room proper and out the door where it could be reported and myself arrested. Yeah, I could just not smoke for 14 hours, but, if I could do that, I wouldn't be smoking at all, would I?
Here's a quote that explains why I'll never convert:
"Certainly our message to Egyptians during Ramadan is no excessive food and no excessive partying or staying up way too late, because that's hated by Islam," says Ali Abdel Fattah, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, a political movement that is officially banned in Egypt.
Anyway, I'm on a plane in two more days. So close, and yet such a far time away...
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
ramadan kareem
Tomorrow we may all wish each other a happy ramadan. But, we won't find out until tonight if ramadan starts tomorrow. That's because a special guy has to see what phase the moon is in a whether the crescent moon has been seen:
You cannot guess the exact days of when Ramadan will start, many times a calendar or website will say it's on some day, but ends up being the day before or the day after. In the end, it all depends on the sighting of the crescent the evening before the supposed day, if it is not sighted, they must wait till the next day to look for the crescent again:
Ramadan will last for 29-30 days, depending on the moon (should be a crescent that looks like a curved strand of hair). Regardless of which day it starts, Ramadan will be considered to have started the night before the actual day, since in Islam, Maghrib (Sunset) marks the beginning of the next day.
You can't precisely calculate the next Ramadan because it all depends on when the crescent is sited. It's roughly 11 days before the previous Ramadan.
Which is interesting, because it's going to effect working hours, and I don't know if I now have 12 hours left to work on the project or 16 hours. I really hope ramadan doesn't start tomorrow. Two full days in an office full of people who are cranky without fasting being involved, and me not being able to smoke. It could get ugly. Good thing I'm leaving soon.
You cannot guess the exact days of when Ramadan will start, many times a calendar or website will say it's on some day, but ends up being the day before or the day after. In the end, it all depends on the sighting of the crescent the evening before the supposed day, if it is not sighted, they must wait till the next day to look for the crescent again:
Ramadan will last for 29-30 days, depending on the moon (should be a crescent that looks like a curved strand of hair). Regardless of which day it starts, Ramadan will be considered to have started the night before the actual day, since in Islam, Maghrib (Sunset) marks the beginning of the next day.
You can't precisely calculate the next Ramadan because it all depends on when the crescent is sited. It's roughly 11 days before the previous Ramadan.
Which is interesting, because it's going to effect working hours, and I don't know if I now have 12 hours left to work on the project or 16 hours. I really hope ramadan doesn't start tomorrow. Two full days in an office full of people who are cranky without fasting being involved, and me not being able to smoke. It could get ugly. Good thing I'm leaving soon.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
happy endings
Today we did the final presentation for my project.
People who were involved on the periphery of the project found out we were taping customer testimonials of how the project helped them, and so everyone invited to the meeting insisted on having themselves taped talking about how great the project was. That made the meeting less boring because they were all making fun of each other's videos. It also was a bit comic because the two guys who did the taping were not holding the camera steady so the picture was shaking around (there was no time to clean up the vids). The best one was when the camera man inadvertently zoomed in on the speaker's face, realized what he did and zoomed back out. There's an old sesame street song (for those of you who remember) where these puppets are singing "near, far, neeeeear, faaaaar"). I watched that clip at least 20 times so I wouldn't laugh when it came up in the presentation.
There was also the little matter of this one guy's name which is mentioned in the presentation. His name is Binu Babu (pronounced as spelled). R, who has a lebanese accent, kept saying like that indian guy on the Simpsons because it made me laugh. Then accidentally he said it that way in the presentation. I was sitting right next to him and had to stab my finger with my pen not to laugh. R did a great job even though, an hour before the presentation, he found out his boss had been fired as well as another director in the company.
The bobble headed IT guy who gave me so many problems on the project was super nice to me today because I insisted R put his name in the presentation as the IT support. I guess it's a sign of a successful project that people want their names associated with it.
The "project manager", of course, didn't say anything to me, not even "good job", even after the customer said how pleased he was with the outcome of the project. The only thing she said to me is "I wouldn't have brought so many cakes if I had known only 14 people were coming". Uh. Hm. Whatever. We had more people than planned show up for the meeting, which is rare here. Then she picked up this big cake she had brought and said "I guess this is too small to fit in your hotel refrigerator (duh!) so I'll just take it home with me".
Nice. Get the company to pay for your cake habit.
As for me, I just worked out, room service brought me a pizza and a rose, and I'm going to eat that and then take twice the recommended dose of Nyquil so I will hopefully be feeling a bit more human tomorrow.
Though, I think R is glad I couldn't really talk today.
We climb on...
People who were involved on the periphery of the project found out we were taping customer testimonials of how the project helped them, and so everyone invited to the meeting insisted on having themselves taped talking about how great the project was. That made the meeting less boring because they were all making fun of each other's videos. It also was a bit comic because the two guys who did the taping were not holding the camera steady so the picture was shaking around (there was no time to clean up the vids). The best one was when the camera man inadvertently zoomed in on the speaker's face, realized what he did and zoomed back out. There's an old sesame street song (for those of you who remember) where these puppets are singing "near, far, neeeeear, faaaaar"). I watched that clip at least 20 times so I wouldn't laugh when it came up in the presentation.
There was also the little matter of this one guy's name which is mentioned in the presentation. His name is Binu Babu (pronounced as spelled). R, who has a lebanese accent, kept saying like that indian guy on the Simpsons because it made me laugh. Then accidentally he said it that way in the presentation. I was sitting right next to him and had to stab my finger with my pen not to laugh. R did a great job even though, an hour before the presentation, he found out his boss had been fired as well as another director in the company.
The bobble headed IT guy who gave me so many problems on the project was super nice to me today because I insisted R put his name in the presentation as the IT support. I guess it's a sign of a successful project that people want their names associated with it.
The "project manager", of course, didn't say anything to me, not even "good job", even after the customer said how pleased he was with the outcome of the project. The only thing she said to me is "I wouldn't have brought so many cakes if I had known only 14 people were coming". Uh. Hm. Whatever. We had more people than planned show up for the meeting, which is rare here. Then she picked up this big cake she had brought and said "I guess this is too small to fit in your hotel refrigerator (duh!) so I'll just take it home with me".
Nice. Get the company to pay for your cake habit.
As for me, I just worked out, room service brought me a pizza and a rose, and I'm going to eat that and then take twice the recommended dose of Nyquil so I will hopefully be feeling a bit more human tomorrow.
Though, I think R is glad I couldn't really talk today.
We climb on...
Saturday, August 7, 2010
what, me worry?
The week ended on a positive note, with everything getting finished for the project. I even did a simulation of a business process which is really going to knock the socks off of everyone in the final meeting tomorrow.
I got done in spite of my "team". The two guys who have been supporting me on the project just stopped working on Tuesday and refused to do anything I asked. They did it in a nice way, but it was infuriating and because of the jack ass way my company works, there is nothing I could do about it. They are just damned lucky they left at 3 pm on Thursday. My customer R had agreed we would leave at 3 because I worked so much overtime this week and I had to go into the office yesterday. I was starting to come down with a cold and just wanted a few hours to rest. As my team walked out the door I asked them if they had tested the web site we have to demo on Sunday to make sure it's working. They told me it was.
But, since I've worked here for long enough to know people are full of shit, I decided to test the web site before I left. It wasn't working. R started flipping out. I had to spend 2 hours fixing it. I was furious, but all those guys are rolling off the project and Thursday was their last day so there's nothing I can do.
As it seemed the day couldn't get any more annoying while I was finalizing the web site fixes, Habib called and insisted I go to dinner with him. I refused, saying I had too many errands to run (since I knew I would be working all weekend I had to get everything done Thursday night - groceries, picking up dry cleaning, getting stuff I ordered from the pharmacy). I walked out the door to the office 20 minutes later and there was Habib. He insisted he would drive me around for my errands, and then take me for sushi. It was 130 degrees outside, and no cabs were in sight, so I finally agreed.
I told him where I needed to go and he started programming his GPS. It was taking forever. I was like "dude, I know how to get to all the places I need to go" but he insisted on using the GPS. Then he cranked up the radio and started blasting Hotel California. I had a splitting head ache and I wanted to kick him in the nuts for acting like a college kid.
We finished my errands and I dropped everything off in my room. I was going to ditch Habib but right as we got to the hotel he said "the reason I came to see you is that my son (who's 12) was diagnosed with bone cancer. He has 6 tumors in his legs and the doctors say he can't do any sports or activities because the bones will break. I can't find a good treatment here." I felt bad so I agreed to hang out with him for a bit so he could talk about his son (he's going to take him to Germany for treatment).
But Habib totally took advantage of my good nature. We went to the Yacht club and he drank 3 martinis. Then he man handled all of the cigars before deciding he didn't want one. He treated the staff there so badly and I was so embarrassed that I gave them a $30 tip on top of the tip he left them. He was in a horrible mood, I guess because of his son, although he kept saying it was because I was leaving. He tried to grab my hand at one point and I told him I would punch him in the face if he touched me (can't call the police on him because he has wasta, though normally that's what I would do). He then started making a scene because I said I was tired and didn't want to go to dinner. I was like whatever dude, let's go get sushi. We drove to my sushi place, Sushi Samurai.
While we were in his car he said he was mad that he had planned a trip last weekend to a resort in Egypt and I didn't go. Then he was mad that he was going to a resort in Liwa this weekend and I refused to go (not just because of work but because I have no desire to hang out with him). To piss him off I started smoking in his car. He didn't say anything to me but I think I got my point across to him about how little I care that he's upset.
Once we got to Sushi Samurai Habib admitted he didn't like sushi. He told the waiter to bring him something that was like KFC. I was like dude, why don't you eat something healthy instead of having fried chicken and he went off on another tirade about how he was fat and probably had cancer so who cared if he was eating healthy. He also was upset that I had taken him to a restaurant that didn't serve alcohol.(which I did on purpose).
He told me that while he was in Egypt he and a friend of his had gotten their driver to get them some hashish. Drugs are not treated lightly here, and in most countries there is a potential death sentence if you are caught using drugs. He might have been trying to impress me, but I told him that I couldn't believe he would take such a stupid risk since he has 4 kids. He got mad at me and said he's going back to Egypt next week to smoke more hashish. Seriously, the dude is just crazy.
After dinner I told him to take me back to the hotel so I could get some rest. It was 10 o'clock, I was exhausted, and I had to get up at 6 the next morning for work. He kept driving the wrong way, so I finally started yelling at him. I'm not even sure what I said, but he started crying. I felt bad but I didn't apologize.
I got a text message from him yesterday and today, but just ignored them. I hope I don't have to see him again before I leave. It's sad that he has so much money, and family connections, and is one of the most negative and miserable people I've ever met.
I was talking about that with R on our way into work yesterday. He said that this place is one of the most negative he's ever lived in. It just seems to be the nature of everyone here. If you do a good job they still criticize you. If you piss of the wrong person, for whatever trivial reason, they make it their life mission to destroy you. R said that if the people in the middle east spent even half the time they spend screwing each other over doing something positive there would be a huge difference.
But, things aren't going to change in the foreseeable future. What happens instead is that people like R, who are good people, get sick of this place and leave. He's had a hard life. His family was decimated in the Lebanese war. But he won't even go back to Lebanon now. He's working hard to save up money for his family, and then they are going to Canada.
In any case, I'm out of here next Saturday. And I won't be coming back.
I got done in spite of my "team". The two guys who have been supporting me on the project just stopped working on Tuesday and refused to do anything I asked. They did it in a nice way, but it was infuriating and because of the jack ass way my company works, there is nothing I could do about it. They are just damned lucky they left at 3 pm on Thursday. My customer R had agreed we would leave at 3 because I worked so much overtime this week and I had to go into the office yesterday. I was starting to come down with a cold and just wanted a few hours to rest. As my team walked out the door I asked them if they had tested the web site we have to demo on Sunday to make sure it's working. They told me it was.
But, since I've worked here for long enough to know people are full of shit, I decided to test the web site before I left. It wasn't working. R started flipping out. I had to spend 2 hours fixing it. I was furious, but all those guys are rolling off the project and Thursday was their last day so there's nothing I can do.
As it seemed the day couldn't get any more annoying while I was finalizing the web site fixes, Habib called and insisted I go to dinner with him. I refused, saying I had too many errands to run (since I knew I would be working all weekend I had to get everything done Thursday night - groceries, picking up dry cleaning, getting stuff I ordered from the pharmacy). I walked out the door to the office 20 minutes later and there was Habib. He insisted he would drive me around for my errands, and then take me for sushi. It was 130 degrees outside, and no cabs were in sight, so I finally agreed.
I told him where I needed to go and he started programming his GPS. It was taking forever. I was like "dude, I know how to get to all the places I need to go" but he insisted on using the GPS. Then he cranked up the radio and started blasting Hotel California. I had a splitting head ache and I wanted to kick him in the nuts for acting like a college kid.
We finished my errands and I dropped everything off in my room. I was going to ditch Habib but right as we got to the hotel he said "the reason I came to see you is that my son (who's 12) was diagnosed with bone cancer. He has 6 tumors in his legs and the doctors say he can't do any sports or activities because the bones will break. I can't find a good treatment here." I felt bad so I agreed to hang out with him for a bit so he could talk about his son (he's going to take him to Germany for treatment).
But Habib totally took advantage of my good nature. We went to the Yacht club and he drank 3 martinis. Then he man handled all of the cigars before deciding he didn't want one. He treated the staff there so badly and I was so embarrassed that I gave them a $30 tip on top of the tip he left them. He was in a horrible mood, I guess because of his son, although he kept saying it was because I was leaving. He tried to grab my hand at one point and I told him I would punch him in the face if he touched me (can't call the police on him because he has wasta, though normally that's what I would do). He then started making a scene because I said I was tired and didn't want to go to dinner. I was like whatever dude, let's go get sushi. We drove to my sushi place, Sushi Samurai.
While we were in his car he said he was mad that he had planned a trip last weekend to a resort in Egypt and I didn't go. Then he was mad that he was going to a resort in Liwa this weekend and I refused to go (not just because of work but because I have no desire to hang out with him). To piss him off I started smoking in his car. He didn't say anything to me but I think I got my point across to him about how little I care that he's upset.
Once we got to Sushi Samurai Habib admitted he didn't like sushi. He told the waiter to bring him something that was like KFC. I was like dude, why don't you eat something healthy instead of having fried chicken and he went off on another tirade about how he was fat and probably had cancer so who cared if he was eating healthy. He also was upset that I had taken him to a restaurant that didn't serve alcohol.(which I did on purpose).
He told me that while he was in Egypt he and a friend of his had gotten their driver to get them some hashish. Drugs are not treated lightly here, and in most countries there is a potential death sentence if you are caught using drugs. He might have been trying to impress me, but I told him that I couldn't believe he would take such a stupid risk since he has 4 kids. He got mad at me and said he's going back to Egypt next week to smoke more hashish. Seriously, the dude is just crazy.
After dinner I told him to take me back to the hotel so I could get some rest. It was 10 o'clock, I was exhausted, and I had to get up at 6 the next morning for work. He kept driving the wrong way, so I finally started yelling at him. I'm not even sure what I said, but he started crying. I felt bad but I didn't apologize.
I got a text message from him yesterday and today, but just ignored them. I hope I don't have to see him again before I leave. It's sad that he has so much money, and family connections, and is one of the most negative and miserable people I've ever met.
I was talking about that with R on our way into work yesterday. He said that this place is one of the most negative he's ever lived in. It just seems to be the nature of everyone here. If you do a good job they still criticize you. If you piss of the wrong person, for whatever trivial reason, they make it their life mission to destroy you. R said that if the people in the middle east spent even half the time they spend screwing each other over doing something positive there would be a huge difference.
But, things aren't going to change in the foreseeable future. What happens instead is that people like R, who are good people, get sick of this place and leave. He's had a hard life. His family was decimated in the Lebanese war. But he won't even go back to Lebanon now. He's working hard to save up money for his family, and then they are going to Canada.
In any case, I'm out of here next Saturday. And I won't be coming back.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
my week, and it's only wednesday
So much for cruising through the last weeks of my project. Highlights of the past few days:
- The server where all of my work is had a patch installed on Sunday. This somehow removed my rights to the server. All of my work is on the server. It took 2 hours that I didn't have to fix the problem.
- 20 people were fired on Sunday. Chaos in the office.
- Etisalat blocked bb service because RIM wouldn't agree to let them monitor messages. All Sunday I couldn't receive emails on my bb at work which is a major problem as the customer was emailing me stuff to use for a presentation I had to put together but COB sunday. I was at work from 7 am to 9 pm.
- Monday a fired employee took down the wireless network. I didn't have email access again, and couldn't get on the server, which was fixed by then, because I connect through the wireless. Service came back Monday afternoon, but the office was full of people screaming and yelling. Two important meetings I needed to have were postponed because of the security incident. They finally happened at 7 PM. Once again, I didn't get home until almost 10.
- Jakey, my car, was rear ended in Montana. Not sure what's going on with that, too busy and tired to find out.
- The office I was working in smelled horrible. It turns out two birds flew into the air con shaft and died. The tea boy kept coming in and spraying some vile baby powder air freshener in the office. It almost made me vomit.
- Tuesday I decided to make some vid clips of my customer to use in the final presentation. The clips were great and everyone was really excited (they don't do stuff like that here, mostly because the locals usually won't let you even photograph them, but, my customer likes me) but I was up until 2 am editing them for the presentation.
- An idiot member of my architecture team imported some faulty code and took down our database. Then the little shit left while I was in a meeting. Of course the IT guys weren't backing our server up. I didn't leave the office until 9 PM fixing the issue. And then the little shit came in at 9 this morning and was mad because I didn't let him fix the problem. Like, if you break my system and think I'm going to wait until your candy ass rolls in here at 9 am, you really know nothing about working for me.
- An idiot sales person introduced a technical requirement at a customer meeting that we couldn't do. My customer was freaking out because we had to have the requirement done by today. I probably could figure it out, but not in the amount of time I have left. Allah bless this kid in Singapore who fixed the problem. I seriously wanted to get on a plane, fly there, and hug him.
- I found out the CEO is going to be on vacation during the final presentation for my project. He wants to set up a vid conference on August 16 so I can do the presentation again, from the US. Ech.
- The vids were so successful that more people want to make them. I have no time to film people.
- The air conditioning in the office I work in broke at 2 pm. It was almost 100 degrees in the office by the time I left this evening.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
explosions in the morning, my nose is injured
Don't read this post unless you are really immature. I'm laughing as I write it, but I'm really immature.
On Thursday I was working in R's office because we were trying to get a presentation done and my desk in the hallway is just too chaotic these days to be able to concentrate. R and I have been working together for over a week. We get along really well, mostly because we are so much alike. We have food obsessions (like sandwiches and pizza), architecture obsessions (R said he has nightmares about me quizzing him at the hague about why he did certain things in his models), and music obsessions (he went through my 60 GB music library, which I thought was big, then showed me his 2 terabyte library - I was like "I have everything Billie Holiday ever recorded" and he said "I have everything anyone ever recorded" - but, lebanese are like that, always trying to one up you).
R's office, I should mention, shares a wall with the upstairs bathroom (which I'm not allowed to use because I have to go to the ladies' room two flights down).
Anyway, I was sitting at a desk opposite of R and I had just taken a bite of my apple when suddenly I heard this very loud noise coming from the bathroom. It sounded, literally, like someone's ass had just exploded. I made my face really tense so I wouldn't start laughing. I made the mistake of glancing over at R to see if he had heard the noise. He was staring at me with this retarded grin on his face. That was it for me. I suddenly was overcome with laughter. I choked on my apple, and a piece of it flew out of my nose, which made me laugh even harder. R covered his face with both of his hands. We must have laughed for 5 minutes straight. Then I said "I knew I shouldn't have looked at you" and he said "I thought maybe I imagined the noise". This caused us both to start laughing again.
Worse, we heard whoever was in the bathroom rinsing off in the tub. Every bathroom here has a tub so people can wash up for prayers (I guess - I honestly don't know why they have tubs, but every bathroom in every office I've been in has one). This caused another fit of laughter. When I finally had myself more or less under control another bad thing happened. The tea boy went into the bathroom and started cleaning it very loudly. I would say I was incapacitated by my laughter for at least 40 minutes.
I got a nose bleed from the apple coming out of my nose.
On Thursday I was working in R's office because we were trying to get a presentation done and my desk in the hallway is just too chaotic these days to be able to concentrate. R and I have been working together for over a week. We get along really well, mostly because we are so much alike. We have food obsessions (like sandwiches and pizza), architecture obsessions (R said he has nightmares about me quizzing him at the hague about why he did certain things in his models), and music obsessions (he went through my 60 GB music library, which I thought was big, then showed me his 2 terabyte library - I was like "I have everything Billie Holiday ever recorded" and he said "I have everything anyone ever recorded" - but, lebanese are like that, always trying to one up you).
R's office, I should mention, shares a wall with the upstairs bathroom (which I'm not allowed to use because I have to go to the ladies' room two flights down).
Anyway, I was sitting at a desk opposite of R and I had just taken a bite of my apple when suddenly I heard this very loud noise coming from the bathroom. It sounded, literally, like someone's ass had just exploded. I made my face really tense so I wouldn't start laughing. I made the mistake of glancing over at R to see if he had heard the noise. He was staring at me with this retarded grin on his face. That was it for me. I suddenly was overcome with laughter. I choked on my apple, and a piece of it flew out of my nose, which made me laugh even harder. R covered his face with both of his hands. We must have laughed for 5 minutes straight. Then I said "I knew I shouldn't have looked at you" and he said "I thought maybe I imagined the noise". This caused us both to start laughing again.
Worse, we heard whoever was in the bathroom rinsing off in the tub. Every bathroom here has a tub so people can wash up for prayers (I guess - I honestly don't know why they have tubs, but every bathroom in every office I've been in has one). This caused another fit of laughter. When I finally had myself more or less under control another bad thing happened. The tea boy went into the bathroom and started cleaning it very loudly. I would say I was incapacitated by my laughter for at least 40 minutes.
I got a nose bleed from the apple coming out of my nose.
strange snake test
I've always had a really bad fear of snakes. So bad that I jump at the sight of something that might vaguely resemble a snake. My dad has gotten to the point where he can ignore when I seize up because I've seen a tree root that looks snake-ish. I've wrecked my mountain bike numerous times because I've seen a snake or something that looked like a snake (one memorable time I rode over a black snake that was stretched out to get sun on the bike trail, and then I fell off my bike as it lifted its head towards my foot).
But the other night I had a dream about snakes that I think might have cured my phobia. In the dream there was a guy who's face I couldn't see because he was wearing a big beige hat. He was handling different snakes and trying to get me to pick them up. I was frozen with fear but he kept yelling at me in this australian accented voice "Pick up the black mamba! Just pick it up!"
Finally, I reached out towards the ground and picked up this bright green snake. "Oh," he said, "that one's a poisonous viper!" I didn't know what to do next because I had thought the snake was fairly harmless and now that I knew it was poisonous I didn't want to hold it anymore. "Just put it on the ground" he said, and the snake slithered away.
"Now that you picked up the worst one, pick up the black mamba. Just get it right behind the head." I started to reach for the black mamba and as my hand got closer the snake's head got smaller and smaller. But its fangs stayed the same size. "It doesn't want to be picked up and it's making it's head too small," I whined. The guy said "Right when they don't want you to do something is when you should do it because you have the element of surprise." I picked up that snake too.
When I woke up from the dream it was 230 in the morning. I had this thought that maybe my snake phobia was gone. To test my theory I first thought about a snake being under my bed ready to strike when I put my feet on the floor. I put my feet on the floor but didn't experience the heart pounding fear that I normally would from visualizing this scenario. Then I decided to put my belt on the floor so in the morning, when I woke up, I would see it in the dark and think it was a snake. But when I woke up and saw my belt, I didn't panic.
I was very happy when R, my new customer boss, came to pick me up in the morning. I explained to him on the way into work about my dream and how I thought I was cured of my snake fear. Apparently my story had some effect on R because he missed our exit for work, even though he's been driving to the same building for over a year.
"So, you think you're cured of your phobia because you've had this dream and then you put a belt on the floor, and when you saw it you didn't think it was a snake and you weren't afraid of it?" he asked me. "Yep" I said, very proud of myself for not being afraid of snakes anymore.
"That has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard in my life," he said. "Is everyone in the US so crazy, or just you?"
I know it sounds doubtful, but I really do think I'm cured of my snake phobia. I was trying to get R to take me to some place in Abu Dhabi or Dubai that might have a snake that was real so I could verify that I'm cured. He said "I don't go places with crazy people that think they aren't afraid of snakes because if you see a real snake and are afraid of it you'll probably freak out and somehow injure me."
Heh. Ever since I wrecked one person's car in the desert and he got a little hurt (I did as well - I still have a bruise on my side from where the metal of the seat belt squished me when we were landing) everyone here is afraid to go anywhere with me.
Franki phobia. I kind of hope it spreads, actually.
But the other night I had a dream about snakes that I think might have cured my phobia. In the dream there was a guy who's face I couldn't see because he was wearing a big beige hat. He was handling different snakes and trying to get me to pick them up. I was frozen with fear but he kept yelling at me in this australian accented voice "Pick up the black mamba! Just pick it up!"
Finally, I reached out towards the ground and picked up this bright green snake. "Oh," he said, "that one's a poisonous viper!" I didn't know what to do next because I had thought the snake was fairly harmless and now that I knew it was poisonous I didn't want to hold it anymore. "Just put it on the ground" he said, and the snake slithered away.
"Now that you picked up the worst one, pick up the black mamba. Just get it right behind the head." I started to reach for the black mamba and as my hand got closer the snake's head got smaller and smaller. But its fangs stayed the same size. "It doesn't want to be picked up and it's making it's head too small," I whined. The guy said "Right when they don't want you to do something is when you should do it because you have the element of surprise." I picked up that snake too.
When I woke up from the dream it was 230 in the morning. I had this thought that maybe my snake phobia was gone. To test my theory I first thought about a snake being under my bed ready to strike when I put my feet on the floor. I put my feet on the floor but didn't experience the heart pounding fear that I normally would from visualizing this scenario. Then I decided to put my belt on the floor so in the morning, when I woke up, I would see it in the dark and think it was a snake. But when I woke up and saw my belt, I didn't panic.
I was very happy when R, my new customer boss, came to pick me up in the morning. I explained to him on the way into work about my dream and how I thought I was cured of my snake fear. Apparently my story had some effect on R because he missed our exit for work, even though he's been driving to the same building for over a year.
"So, you think you're cured of your phobia because you've had this dream and then you put a belt on the floor, and when you saw it you didn't think it was a snake and you weren't afraid of it?" he asked me. "Yep" I said, very proud of myself for not being afraid of snakes anymore.
"That has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard in my life," he said. "Is everyone in the US so crazy, or just you?"
I know it sounds doubtful, but I really do think I'm cured of my snake phobia. I was trying to get R to take me to some place in Abu Dhabi or Dubai that might have a snake that was real so I could verify that I'm cured. He said "I don't go places with crazy people that think they aren't afraid of snakes because if you see a real snake and are afraid of it you'll probably freak out and somehow injure me."
Heh. Ever since I wrecked one person's car in the desert and he got a little hurt (I did as well - I still have a bruise on my side from where the metal of the seat belt squished me when we were landing) everyone here is afraid to go anywhere with me.
Franki phobia. I kind of hope it spreads, actually.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
if I had a million dollars I would buy your love
This morning, at 5am, I was awoken rudely from my sleep (for the second time, the first being the call to prayer at 430, why am I staying at a hotel near a mosque) to discover the following on my cell phone:
YOUR MOBILE N0. HAS BE AWARDED £500,000.00(GBP) IN THE ONGOING NOKIA MOBILE PROMO. REF No: SW805 FOR CLAIM CALL+447045754969 & EMAIL: nokia-uk@europe.com] [Country:UNITED KINGDOM] [Language:English]
Immediately sensing a hoax, I contacted Nokia, and got this response back:
Thank you for contacting Nokia Care.
Nokia is aware that recently there have been several hoax messages on different Nokia promotions and lottery campaigns, sent via email or SMS, purporting to originate from Nokia. Nokia has not initiated any such campaigns and has nothing to do with them - the messages have been sent via parties that are not associated with Nokia in any way.
Please do not reply to these messages or pass them on, as it is possible that by replying to such e-mails or taking the requested actions your personal information could be misused by the originators of the message or others.
The most effective action is to delete the message without responding to the sender. You can also contact your local authorities to report such hoax messages.
For future reference, please feel free to check our website. Kindly refer to the link below:
http://www.nokia.co.uk/home
I guess I've been here too long. I'm getting hoax messages on my cell phone. Luckily I have less than 3 weeks left here.
I once was emailing with a guy who said he wanted to date me, but couldn't due to his personal circumstances. After reading through his email I sent one back saying, as a joke "what if I had a million dollars". He responded "That would make things harder, but wouldn't change them" or something to that effect. I bet he would have changed his mind if I had really won a million dollars.
Of course, then he would have to be my bitch.
YOUR MOBILE N0. HAS BE AWARDED £500,000.00(GBP) IN THE ONGOING NOKIA MOBILE PROMO. REF No: SW805 FOR CLAIM CALL+447045754969 & EMAIL: nokia-uk@europe.com] [Country:UNITED KINGDOM] [Language:English]
Immediately sensing a hoax, I contacted Nokia, and got this response back:
Thank you for contacting Nokia Care.
Nokia is aware that recently there have been several hoax messages on different Nokia promotions and lottery campaigns, sent via email or SMS, purporting to originate from Nokia. Nokia has not initiated any such campaigns and has nothing to do with them - the messages have been sent via parties that are not associated with Nokia in any way.
Please do not reply to these messages or pass them on, as it is possible that by replying to such e-mails or taking the requested actions your personal information could be misused by the originators of the message or others.
The most effective action is to delete the message without responding to the sender. You can also contact your local authorities to report such hoax messages.
For future reference, please feel free to check our website. Kindly refer to the link below:
http://www.nokia.co.uk/home
I guess I've been here too long. I'm getting hoax messages on my cell phone. Luckily I have less than 3 weeks left here.
I once was emailing with a guy who said he wanted to date me, but couldn't due to his personal circumstances. After reading through his email I sent one back saying, as a joke "what if I had a million dollars". He responded "That would make things harder, but wouldn't change them" or something to that effect. I bet he would have changed his mind if I had really won a million dollars.
Of course, then he would have to be my bitch.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
problem child has left the building
Today started out as the usual insane day, since I've been away from my project for 4 days doing training. My group of girls and I hung out for a few minutes to chat. Then I sat in meetings while simultaneously working on stuff. At 2 pm I left with R to go to a meeting.
As I walked out of my 2 pm meeting I received an email from a high level person at the company saying they had fired the problem child. Interesting. Especially because my meeting had been with HR to discuss how we can involve them in our project. The HR people were as shocked as I was.
Well, at least the last 3 weeks (yea! only 3 more weeks!!!!) should be less stressful.
As I walked out of my 2 pm meeting I received an email from a high level person at the company saying they had fired the problem child. Interesting. Especially because my meeting had been with HR to discuss how we can involve them in our project. The HR people were as shocked as I was.
Well, at least the last 3 weeks (yea! only 3 more weeks!!!!) should be less stressful.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
my name's not Charlie, and these are no angels
The first 7 months I spent here I was subject to some pretty harsh treatment by the local women. But, I made it a mission to change that.
I taught a class a few months ago. There was only one female. I realized immediately that she was the smartest one of the group (not me being sexist, 54% of local women go to college vs. 23% of men, and of the 23% of men only 7% get a degree, unlike the women who graduate with degrees) but she was afraid to speak up because of her male colleagues. I invited her to do some one on one training with me during the lunch break and after class, with good results.
I've since started doing that with every female in my classes. I've also (even though I could get in a lot of trouble for this) allowed women not officially signed up for my classes to attend them. I put out notice that any woman interested in architecture can contact me and I will help them out as much as I can (given my current work schedule which is, at times, insane).
I'm proud to report that I have a serious group of 7 local women that I'm mentoring. I do everything from helping them with technical issues to plotting with them on how to deal with a difficult male boss. I'm not trying to free them from their hijab, I'm just trying to free their minds, and I think that is what gives me some credibility with them.
When we started our little group one of the women suggested we call ourselves charlie's angels (after the movie, she's way too young to have known about the TV show). Now they call themselves Franki's Devils. When I finally leave here in August if even half of them are making the same progress at work that they all seem to be making now, I'll be happy.
The weird thing is, when we were meeting the other evening, I looked around the room and saw a bunch of beautiful, fashionable women who are all really, really smart. I was joking with them that I feel like I'm teaching super models how to be geeks. They make fun of me all the time (like today when one told me that my hair can probably be seen from outer space because it was so humid today I looked like a blonde cotton ball) but I think that they are starting to like me for real, and not just because I'm trying to help them. We never talk about personal things, and we never gossip, we just talk engineering stuff. If just one of them makes it to a conference within the next year because she's run a successful architecture project I will be very happy.
It's always been my experience at work that women are the worst bosses and will do anything to hold another woman down. I swore I would never do that. And then a cousin of mine went in to the peace corp and taught african women how to run their own businesses. I thought that was cool and wanted to do something like that myself. I've mentored a few women over the years but every one of them ended up getting married or having kids and dropping out of the work force. Here, I feel that the women are motivated to make an impact, and not a slight impact, but a big bang.
Change will come here. And these women will hopefully be part of it.
I taught a class a few months ago. There was only one female. I realized immediately that she was the smartest one of the group (not me being sexist, 54% of local women go to college vs. 23% of men, and of the 23% of men only 7% get a degree, unlike the women who graduate with degrees) but she was afraid to speak up because of her male colleagues. I invited her to do some one on one training with me during the lunch break and after class, with good results.
I've since started doing that with every female in my classes. I've also (even though I could get in a lot of trouble for this) allowed women not officially signed up for my classes to attend them. I put out notice that any woman interested in architecture can contact me and I will help them out as much as I can (given my current work schedule which is, at times, insane).
I'm proud to report that I have a serious group of 7 local women that I'm mentoring. I do everything from helping them with technical issues to plotting with them on how to deal with a difficult male boss. I'm not trying to free them from their hijab, I'm just trying to free their minds, and I think that is what gives me some credibility with them.
When we started our little group one of the women suggested we call ourselves charlie's angels (after the movie, she's way too young to have known about the TV show). Now they call themselves Franki's Devils. When I finally leave here in August if even half of them are making the same progress at work that they all seem to be making now, I'll be happy.
The weird thing is, when we were meeting the other evening, I looked around the room and saw a bunch of beautiful, fashionable women who are all really, really smart. I was joking with them that I feel like I'm teaching super models how to be geeks. They make fun of me all the time (like today when one told me that my hair can probably be seen from outer space because it was so humid today I looked like a blonde cotton ball) but I think that they are starting to like me for real, and not just because I'm trying to help them. We never talk about personal things, and we never gossip, we just talk engineering stuff. If just one of them makes it to a conference within the next year because she's run a successful architecture project I will be very happy.
It's always been my experience at work that women are the worst bosses and will do anything to hold another woman down. I swore I would never do that. And then a cousin of mine went in to the peace corp and taught african women how to run their own businesses. I thought that was cool and wanted to do something like that myself. I've mentored a few women over the years but every one of them ended up getting married or having kids and dropping out of the work force. Here, I feel that the women are motivated to make an impact, and not a slight impact, but a big bang.
Change will come here. And these women will hopefully be part of it.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
hearts and hurts - is there really a difference?
Some text messages I've gotten from Habib. I used to correct his english, but he usually claims that I don't know what I'm talking about and that he's right. In particular, he confuses "hearts" and "hurts":
(as he's boarding the plane to Jordan - he's broken 3 nails, likely because he gets manicures every few days):
"Had 90 mimutes sleep. On of the 3 broken nails really hearts !! boarding in minutes. Will miss you... Take care."
And yesterday:
"Spent the night n the hospital. My 3 years kid heart himself . Deep wound over his eye, stiches...etc. Slept few hours and saw u drawing with a pencil on my face . I did not see what you were drawing but you were smiling all the way!! So what is this ?"
Now I have to think of an explanation of why he might have had a dream I was drawing on his face. Comparatively, I'm not that complicated.
(as he's boarding the plane to Jordan - he's broken 3 nails, likely because he gets manicures every few days):
"Had 90 mimutes sleep. On of the 3 broken nails really hearts !! boarding in minutes. Will miss you... Take care."
And yesterday:
"Spent the night n the hospital. My 3 years kid heart himself . Deep wound over his eye, stiches...etc. Slept few hours and saw u drawing with a pencil on my face . I did not see what you were drawing but you were smiling all the way!! So what is this ?"
Now I have to think of an explanation of why he might have had a dream I was drawing on his face. Comparatively, I'm not that complicated.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
local entertainment
I've developed a weird friendship with a local guy who works for the parent company of the company I'm consulting with. Well, he has a "job" there, but he doesn't really do any work. He's related to the sheik though, so he was given a position because he has a lot of wasta.
I'll call him Habib. He's a year older than me physically and about 25 years younger than me mentally. I first caught his attention in a meeting (he had only come in to the room to get some cookies but ended up staying). He said he was interested in me because of my hair. In fact, he once asked me to give him a lock of my hair. I told him to stop being stupid, and he got so mad at me he didn't talk to me for a few days.
Habib is interested in all things western. Even though he's super rich, he's barely done any traveling and has never been to the US. We started hanging out because I would show him pictures from my travels that I have up on the kodakgallery web site. He especially likes to look at pictures of my house (he's never seen a "real", that is not movie, house with brick walls or wood floors, shockingly) and asks endless questions like "where did you get that?" and "why do you have that picture on the wall?" I bet if someone broke into my house I could send him pictures and he would know as well as I do, or better, what was missing.
He used to call and invite me to meet him for dinner. At first the invitation was for a restaurant in my hotel, and the invitations kept escalating to fancier and fancier places. Finally a person at my customer site told me Habib thought I was turning down his invitations because he wasn't inviting me to a nice enough place. I had a long talk with Habib to explain that, even though we are friends, I'm not going to dinner with him alone because I don't want to get myself into some weird situation. He was mad at first but seems to be fine now.
He takes xanax every day. I asked him why and he said it's because he can't control his mind. He first became depressed when he was 14 because he watched a movie about a guy who couldn't sleep. That night, he suddenly thought that maybe he had the same disease as the guy in the movie. For six months he couldn't really eat or sleep. Finally he talked to his grandfather who said the disease in the movie wasn't real, and he was instantly better.
He got depressed again in his 20s. He met a woman that he really loved and they dated for 2 years. But he couldn't commit to marrying her because of his family (she was local but not from a prominent family). She ended up marrying her boss.
Habib then told his mom to arrange a marriage for him and he married his cousin (that's one of the few things he's said to me that actually shocked me - I was like "your cousin? your real cousin?" and he said "yes, she is the daughter of my mother's sister" - it's common to marry like that here which is why many of the locals end up with rare diseases). Although he has 4 kids the marriage, according to him, is unhappy because he hates his wife. He said that even on the first night of their honeymoon they fought (he called it a "hellmoon").
After getting married he woke up one day and thought "what is the worst thing I could ever do?" and suddenly the thought "F*k God" popped into his head. For the muslim culture this is the worst thing you could ever think. But then he started thinking it all the time and couldn't stop. He said he would be sitting in his car in traffic and inside he was screaming "F*k God" over and over again, thousands of times, and he couldn't stop.
He tried to become super religious in the hopes that would help. He began praying 10 times a day and studying the koran, fasting when it wasn't required, going to the mosque every evening, and he completely quit everything that is haram (he used to drink alcohol and smoke cigars). But that didn't help either.
So he went to a doctor and said that he was having trouble sleeping. The doctor has, over the years, given him various medications but none seemed to help. Habib did some research on line and finally decided he needed xanax. So he made up some fake symptoms that didn't make him seem crazy and the doctor gave him the prescription. He said the drug helps him "not think about things I shouldn't think about".
After taking xanax and getting un-depressed he decided that being super religious was a waste of time. He doesn't pray or go to the mosque anymore except for special occasions. He drinks alcohol and smokes cigars. But sometimes he gets anxious that he is going to hell. I keep reminding him that the koran doesn't say that alcohol and smoking are forbidden. Sometimes he asks me if I think God likes him. I used to say "I don't know". Then he would say "well if you were God would you like me?" I used to think this was a backhanded way to get me to say that I liked him, but then realized he was being serious. So now when he asks me I pause, and then say "when you asked me that question I just had a feeling that God was telling me to tell you that he likes you". This makes Habib very happy although it's crazy, really.
He was thinking to divorce his wife when we met. I suggested marriage counseling and he looked at me like I had suggested he run naked through the streets. He said "we don't do THAT here". I gave him the names of some books he could read but he is too afraid to buy them even on amazon for fear someone will find out. Then I suggested he just marry a new wife that he likes. So he's been asking my opinion of some potential candidates for his second wife. All of them are very young (some not even 20) and sound just as lost as he is.
I've introduced him to rap music, jazz, the word "angst", and some of my favorite bad word expressions. I also translate western culture for him. The other day he was reading a gossip magazine (he reads Hello magazine while he's getting his manicure and pedicure, but he would never have that magazine in his house or lower himself to buy it) and he called me up to ask me "when the magazine says these two people are dating, what does that mean? are they having sex? do they live in the same house?" He also read an article somewhere about women getting raped in the US; part of the article mentioned a woman who went to a bar, got drunk, went home with a strange man, and got raped. He was surprised that the man was charged. Then he wanted to know, in detail, what happens exactly when a rape occurs, how it's proven that the woman was raped, what the legal proceeding is for handling rape, and how much time men spend in jail for rape. Here 4 men have to witness the rape for the woman to get any justice and because of the huge social stigma even if men witness a rape they will rarely report it.
He watched the sex in the city movie, and that sparked a whole other series of conversations. He wanted to know if gay people really have weddings in the US. He asked me (and I assume this is from something in the movie, which I haven't seen) "do women in the US really visit each other and talk about their vaginas?" And: "I'm not ever going to recycle because recycling was invented by gay people and I don't want people to think I'm gay". I pointed out to him that I recycle almost all of my trash (except here because they don't recycle) and that I'm not gay. His response: "well, that's because you try to be nice to everyone, even gay people".
Habib left yesterday to go on holidays in Jordan (he wanted to go after looking at my pictures). He's getting depressed that I'll be leaving soon and he wants to come visit me in the US. His idea is to come to the US, learn how to swim (again, I'm shocked at how few people here can swim - I've told him to take lessons but all he ever wants to do is have me demonstrate how I move my arms and legs when I swim - then he spends 5 or 10 minutes doggy paddling in the air, which he thinks is going to help him if he ever ends up in the water) and to "go to the rocky mountain" (I've stopped correcting his perception that there is one giant mountain that takes up the whole state of Colorado). I pointed out to him that he has to get into shape to go hiking and he told me "I'll just take a donkey up". I told him there are no donkeys to take people up the mountains and he said "well I will buy a donkey and then ride it up the rocky mountain".
I'm going to miss talking to Habib while he is on vacation, although I've already gotten 10 text messages from him complaining about various things that have happened on his trip (the airport in Amman smelled bad, he can't find a KFC which is his favorite place to eat, his driver is egyptian, the hotel put the room for his kids and wife right next to his room so they are driving him crazy, etc.). I have to admit I'll probably miss him when I go home as well. I never thought I'd be friends with a local, and he comes up with so many crazy things he makes me feel that I'm actually normal.
I'll call him Habib. He's a year older than me physically and about 25 years younger than me mentally. I first caught his attention in a meeting (he had only come in to the room to get some cookies but ended up staying). He said he was interested in me because of my hair. In fact, he once asked me to give him a lock of my hair. I told him to stop being stupid, and he got so mad at me he didn't talk to me for a few days.
Habib is interested in all things western. Even though he's super rich, he's barely done any traveling and has never been to the US. We started hanging out because I would show him pictures from my travels that I have up on the kodakgallery web site. He especially likes to look at pictures of my house (he's never seen a "real", that is not movie, house with brick walls or wood floors, shockingly) and asks endless questions like "where did you get that?" and "why do you have that picture on the wall?" I bet if someone broke into my house I could send him pictures and he would know as well as I do, or better, what was missing.
He used to call and invite me to meet him for dinner. At first the invitation was for a restaurant in my hotel, and the invitations kept escalating to fancier and fancier places. Finally a person at my customer site told me Habib thought I was turning down his invitations because he wasn't inviting me to a nice enough place. I had a long talk with Habib to explain that, even though we are friends, I'm not going to dinner with him alone because I don't want to get myself into some weird situation. He was mad at first but seems to be fine now.
He takes xanax every day. I asked him why and he said it's because he can't control his mind. He first became depressed when he was 14 because he watched a movie about a guy who couldn't sleep. That night, he suddenly thought that maybe he had the same disease as the guy in the movie. For six months he couldn't really eat or sleep. Finally he talked to his grandfather who said the disease in the movie wasn't real, and he was instantly better.
He got depressed again in his 20s. He met a woman that he really loved and they dated for 2 years. But he couldn't commit to marrying her because of his family (she was local but not from a prominent family). She ended up marrying her boss.
Habib then told his mom to arrange a marriage for him and he married his cousin (that's one of the few things he's said to me that actually shocked me - I was like "your cousin? your real cousin?" and he said "yes, she is the daughter of my mother's sister" - it's common to marry like that here which is why many of the locals end up with rare diseases). Although he has 4 kids the marriage, according to him, is unhappy because he hates his wife. He said that even on the first night of their honeymoon they fought (he called it a "hellmoon").
After getting married he woke up one day and thought "what is the worst thing I could ever do?" and suddenly the thought "F*k God" popped into his head. For the muslim culture this is the worst thing you could ever think. But then he started thinking it all the time and couldn't stop. He said he would be sitting in his car in traffic and inside he was screaming "F*k God" over and over again, thousands of times, and he couldn't stop.
He tried to become super religious in the hopes that would help. He began praying 10 times a day and studying the koran, fasting when it wasn't required, going to the mosque every evening, and he completely quit everything that is haram (he used to drink alcohol and smoke cigars). But that didn't help either.
So he went to a doctor and said that he was having trouble sleeping. The doctor has, over the years, given him various medications but none seemed to help. Habib did some research on line and finally decided he needed xanax. So he made up some fake symptoms that didn't make him seem crazy and the doctor gave him the prescription. He said the drug helps him "not think about things I shouldn't think about".
After taking xanax and getting un-depressed he decided that being super religious was a waste of time. He doesn't pray or go to the mosque anymore except for special occasions. He drinks alcohol and smokes cigars. But sometimes he gets anxious that he is going to hell. I keep reminding him that the koran doesn't say that alcohol and smoking are forbidden. Sometimes he asks me if I think God likes him. I used to say "I don't know". Then he would say "well if you were God would you like me?" I used to think this was a backhanded way to get me to say that I liked him, but then realized he was being serious. So now when he asks me I pause, and then say "when you asked me that question I just had a feeling that God was telling me to tell you that he likes you". This makes Habib very happy although it's crazy, really.
He was thinking to divorce his wife when we met. I suggested marriage counseling and he looked at me like I had suggested he run naked through the streets. He said "we don't do THAT here". I gave him the names of some books he could read but he is too afraid to buy them even on amazon for fear someone will find out. Then I suggested he just marry a new wife that he likes. So he's been asking my opinion of some potential candidates for his second wife. All of them are very young (some not even 20) and sound just as lost as he is.
I've introduced him to rap music, jazz, the word "angst", and some of my favorite bad word expressions. I also translate western culture for him. The other day he was reading a gossip magazine (he reads Hello magazine while he's getting his manicure and pedicure, but he would never have that magazine in his house or lower himself to buy it) and he called me up to ask me "when the magazine says these two people are dating, what does that mean? are they having sex? do they live in the same house?" He also read an article somewhere about women getting raped in the US; part of the article mentioned a woman who went to a bar, got drunk, went home with a strange man, and got raped. He was surprised that the man was charged. Then he wanted to know, in detail, what happens exactly when a rape occurs, how it's proven that the woman was raped, what the legal proceeding is for handling rape, and how much time men spend in jail for rape. Here 4 men have to witness the rape for the woman to get any justice and because of the huge social stigma even if men witness a rape they will rarely report it.
He watched the sex in the city movie, and that sparked a whole other series of conversations. He wanted to know if gay people really have weddings in the US. He asked me (and I assume this is from something in the movie, which I haven't seen) "do women in the US really visit each other and talk about their vaginas?" And: "I'm not ever going to recycle because recycling was invented by gay people and I don't want people to think I'm gay". I pointed out to him that I recycle almost all of my trash (except here because they don't recycle) and that I'm not gay. His response: "well, that's because you try to be nice to everyone, even gay people".
Habib left yesterday to go on holidays in Jordan (he wanted to go after looking at my pictures). He's getting depressed that I'll be leaving soon and he wants to come visit me in the US. His idea is to come to the US, learn how to swim (again, I'm shocked at how few people here can swim - I've told him to take lessons but all he ever wants to do is have me demonstrate how I move my arms and legs when I swim - then he spends 5 or 10 minutes doggy paddling in the air, which he thinks is going to help him if he ever ends up in the water) and to "go to the rocky mountain" (I've stopped correcting his perception that there is one giant mountain that takes up the whole state of Colorado). I pointed out to him that he has to get into shape to go hiking and he told me "I'll just take a donkey up". I told him there are no donkeys to take people up the mountains and he said "well I will buy a donkey and then ride it up the rocky mountain".
I'm going to miss talking to Habib while he is on vacation, although I've already gotten 10 text messages from him complaining about various things that have happened on his trip (the airport in Amman smelled bad, he can't find a KFC which is his favorite place to eat, his driver is egyptian, the hotel put the room for his kids and wife right next to his room so they are driving him crazy, etc.). I have to admit I'll probably miss him when I go home as well. I never thought I'd be friends with a local, and he comes up with so many crazy things he makes me feel that I'm actually normal.
Friday, July 16, 2010
"don't use this slope" (part 3)
The audio is a little clearer on this one, at least for the most important line...
And Carol is pointing out that I've really wrecked the bumper on the truck.
We're finally unstuck!
And Carol is pointing out that I've really wrecked the bumper on the truck.
We're finally unstuck!
"famous stucks" (part 2)
Ib gives a lesson on how to unstick a stuck truck (this film shows the depth more clearly than the pics). I'm sitting with Carol on the dune above, and we're laughing as they try to rescue the car from the sand pit.
Because the audio isn't completely clear...the trip leader says "yanni (which is like saying um) this is one of the famous stucks (something in arabic)," trying to make me feel like it was the worst stuck that's ever happened on the trip (of course, other stucks later in the night were much worse) and you can hear the other drivers sitting with me on the sand dune clapping. Carol says "oh you did such a good job" and then I say "yeeeah" like an idiot. Someone else says "you must be proud" and I say "I am". Then Ib says "give you a lesson. I always made this (basically saying he told me to drive like that because other people were making fun of him for being my "coach" and causing me to wreck the car) to give you a lesson on this kind of stucks and how to get out of them. Thank you so much Franki". There was a momentary pause in the rescue because not enough tires were on the sand because the pit I had landed in was so steep.
Because the audio isn't completely clear...the trip leader says "yanni (which is like saying um) this is one of the famous stucks (something in arabic)," trying to make me feel like it was the worst stuck that's ever happened on the trip (of course, other stucks later in the night were much worse) and you can hear the other drivers sitting with me on the sand dune clapping. Carol says "oh you did such a good job" and then I say "yeeeah" like an idiot. Someone else says "you must be proud" and I say "I am". Then Ib says "give you a lesson. I always made this (basically saying he told me to drive like that because other people were making fun of him for being my "coach" and causing me to wreck the car) to give you a lesson on this kind of stucks and how to get out of them. Thank you so much Franki". There was a momentary pause in the rescue because not enough tires were on the sand because the pit I had landed in was so steep.
blonde bashing (part 1)
You have to admire a company that wants me to come work for them so badly one of their executives let me almost wreck his car last night. Go ahead and say it - "women drivers".
But, in my defense, it wasn't my fault. After happy hours and dinners, the company decided to take me on an adventure in the hopes I might want to stay here. I met up with Ib, a guy I met through work whom I've become friends with, at 6 PM last night. He's an explorer in an off roading club in dhabi. There were 12 other people on the trip.
Off roading is very dangerous here, so the club has "ranks" of drivers. New drivers have no rank. Someone who's been driving for 6 months on "newbie" trips gets one star. The star system goes up to 4 stars (the stars dictate which trips you can go on). Experts can become explorers, meaning they find new trails. The trails are sort of marked on a gps system, but since the dunes change on a daily basis, the route isn't always clear.
Ib is an explorer. He's been driving for 6 years and he goes at least twice a week. He told me the trip would be done at 10. I figured I would be back to the hotel by 11 pm.
We started out by getting the car ready for offroading. Ib said "don't expect to be treated like a princess". I got out of the car in the 133 degree heat and helped uninflate tires at the edge of a road leading into the desert. Then we were supposed to put up a flag so drivers could see us when we were down in a dune so they wouldn't fly over the dune and hit us. But, Ib didn't have a flag. "How dangerous could this be though?" I thought to myself. Ib's 8 year old daughter's stuffed pink cat was in the car because she sometimes goes with him.
I was about to find out the answer to my question.
We started out on some mellow terrain. It took a bit of getting used to at first. You drive sideways across a dune, like a surfer surfing a wave. The car is constantly sliding down the dune and feels like it is about to turn over. People roll, but usually the sand is so soft that it's hard to roll the car unless you do something really stupid.
Night started falling and we were deep in the desert. We stopped at the top of a wide dune as the moon, which was barely a crescent, came out. We got out of the car and set up some chairs, and the group sat around and had tea and smoked either cigars or cigarettes. "What are we waiting for?" I asked Ib. "Complete darkness," he replied.
Once it was totally dark, Ib handed me the keys to his car. "We're going for a drive," he said. The rest of the group looked as surprised as I did. "But I don't know how to drive in the sand," I said. There was another female in the group, Carol, who's french and looks like a model. She's been driving for four years and is an explorer too. She had been telling me how long it took her to get the confidence to drive on easy stuff. And here I was, in the middle of some serious terrain.
Oh well, f*k it, I thought. I took the keys. My first maneuver involved getting the car out of the way of the other 8 cars parked on the dune. Ib's car was facing downhill on a steep sand slope. There was a car parked sideways in front of me. I had to roll 2 feet to get past the car next to me, and then execute a sharp turn to get around the car in front of me, without sliding into it. I managed to do that but was less than 6 inches from the car in front of me by the time I made my turn. Scary.
Then I made my first foray onto the side of a dune. You have to fight every driving instinct to do this. The car is sliding sideways as you are driving forward and you have to fine tune your pressure on the gas pedal to make sure you are gunning it on the more solid sand and easing off on the softer sand so you don't dig a hole. If the car decides to slide down you have to let it go and then figure out how to get out of the sand ditch. I got about 5 feet onto the dune and the car started to slide. Instead of turning the wheel down I tried to drive up more on the dune and then I hit some soft sand. We were getting stuck. I gunned the engine and all this sand flew off the front tire and into Ib's window. His face was covered with sand because he was sweating. I laughed and got stuck.
Ib tried to get us out, but couldn't. The jeep with the winch came and pulled us out. I thought that would be it for my driving, but Ib wanted me to keep going. He also said "just call me the sandman" because he was so covered in sand (the sand flying through the windows happened constantly the rest of the night because we drove with the windows wide open so we didn't have to have the air con on - what's the point of being in the desert if you aren't experiencing the desert fully?).
My second attempt went really well. I decided to treat the car like a boat and steering became easier, except that Ib said I was taking too tight turns, which can cause the tire, which is deflated, to come off its rim (called a pop out). He also said I should slow down coming over the top of a sand dune since you have to see what's on the down side.
But I was so afraid of getting stuck that it was hard to break coming over the top of a sand dune (that's one of the worst places to be stuck because it's hard to move the car with one set of wheels on one side of the dune, and the other set on the other side). The dunes rise up sharply like a shark fin. The last 2 or 3 feet are normally soft, baby powder textured sand. If you get stuck in that mess you can't drive out of it. So I kept flying over the dunes. Anyway, it was so dark, with no moon, I normally couldn't see where I was going anyway.
Then disaster struck. I went flying over a dune with the gas pedal to the floor because I had been zig zagging up a very soft dune. Ib was encouraging me, psyched I was able to drive up the dune. We came over the top, and for a moment it felt like the car had stopped. Then I realized we weren't stopped, we were falling.
The side we had come down on was super steep. There was a soft sand powder hole at the bottom of the dune and we landed smack in the middle of it. We hit so hard I ended up with a bruise from my seat belt (note in the picture there are NO tire marks behind the car).
I heard the rest of the club, who had been watching me drive from another dune cheering. One egyptian guy yelled out "Franki went flying!" The car had made a horrible noise when it landed. I thought Ib was going to kill me.
Instead he laughed and said "Your first stuck!" It took 15 minutes of winching to get the truck out of the sand pit. Ib laid under the front tire to show how high up it was off the ground. Then the club told me to sit under the tire so they could take a picture for their web site. These pictures so just how soft the sand is here. The back of the truck buried on impact. The front left tire was buried (I also damaged the bumper) but the right tire was really high off the ground.
After we got the car unstuck Ib decided that was enough of me driving. We took off further and further into the desert. Soon other people were getting stuck, so I didn't feel so bad.
Some of the group decided to go home at 10, but I wanted to keep going. The terrain was getting more and more treacherous. At times Ib just let the car slide where ever it wanted to go. Other times we would fly over a dune and hit hard on the other side after flying through the air.
We stopped in a spot between the dunes around 11 pm. Everyone got out and we had dates and tea. Ib and I talked about work, life in general, camels, and then farting. He was telling me about how he had stopped hanging out with some of his friends because they were always having farting contests. He also said they sell this thing in his home country of Jordan that's like a stink bomb, and he used to throw them in his classroom because they would have to cancel class for at least two days because none of the lady teachers could stand the smell. I told him to bring some into the office (he and his family were heading to Jordan today for two weeks holiday) so we could get out of work. He laughed and said he didn't want his sons to know that these things existed because they might throw them in the house (they are 7 and 8 and apparently very badly behaved).
Around 1230 am we started to head home. That's when the trip turned into an epic. First we got a little lost and ended up on a soft dune. Everyone kept getting stuck. The only way out was to drive down this narrow corridor. As we headed towards the corridor Carol, who was in front of us, slammed on her brakes. In front of her was a newly constructed fence. She almost hit it, and then we almost hit her. Our cars were so close they couldn't winch Carol out because we were in the way. The guys in the group managed to push her out of the hole she had dug spinning her tires trying to not hit the fence. We then tried to back up the dune but the car slid forward into the fence.
About 20 guys came riding up on ATVs and started yelling in Arabic. Apparently a camel preserve had just put up the fence and they were yelling at us for being to close to the preserve. They yelled at Ib as he tried in vain to unstick the truck. His clutch was burning so bad that it smelled for the rest of the drive, but he couldn't move his car.
Finally the camel guys agreed to lower the fence so we could drive over it. We gunned up a dune while the camel guys screamed at us to not hit the camels. Then we got out and over the dune.
But a few minutes later the leader of our trip hit the fence in a new place. It took 15 minutes to get him unstuck and instead of being nice like Ib, he just cut the fence. Then another driver got stuck in the same place and had a pop out. While we tried to jack up his truck and fix the problem (which was not easy because the pop out tire was on the downside of the dune slope) the camel guys came over and started screaming that we would be arrested for ruining their fence. I was like great. It's 130 in the morning. I was tired, really dirty, and hot. I hadn't eaten anything since 11 in the morning so I was hungry but afraid to eat because I knew I would puke from all the spinning moves we were doing in the truck. And now we're going to jail, I thought.
But, Ib talked to the guys and in the end they let us go. We got the pop out fixed and Ib assured me we were only 10 km from the road and that we would be heading home shortly.
Then two more people got stuck. And Ib flew over a dune and landed in a sand pit. He had to be winched twice to get out of it and we thought for a few minutes we were going to have to leave the car because the position it was in made it so hard to pull out. The leader was the final stuck, ending up in a sand pit so deep that when the winch pulled him out we all had to move in case the cable broke and went flying.
Finally, at 4 am, we arrived at a gas station to reinflate the tires. Ib's car was first, but it took so long for the guy to fill the tires that it seemed he could do it faster by manually blowing into the valve. Ib was making fun of me because I was covered head to toe in sand and sweat. As Carol and I walked across the parking lot of the filling station to look at the damage she had done to her jeep from a stuck I left a trail of sand.
Ib dropped me off at the hotel at 530 in the morning. The intercon staff looked at me curiously as I made another sand trail through the lobby. I had blood on my feet from scratching them while I was trying to help unstick the truck barefoot. My shirt and pants were covered in dust. My hair was flying in a million different directions from driving in the heat with the windows open.
After showering I finally was able to lay down and shut my eyes. But right before I fell asleep I remembered the words of the trip leader: "so, next ride you will have your own jeep?"
Ha ha, I wish. No, I'd rather wreck someone else's.
But, in my defense, it wasn't my fault. After happy hours and dinners, the company decided to take me on an adventure in the hopes I might want to stay here. I met up with Ib, a guy I met through work whom I've become friends with, at 6 PM last night. He's an explorer in an off roading club in dhabi. There were 12 other people on the trip.
Off roading is very dangerous here, so the club has "ranks" of drivers. New drivers have no rank. Someone who's been driving for 6 months on "newbie" trips gets one star. The star system goes up to 4 stars (the stars dictate which trips you can go on). Experts can become explorers, meaning they find new trails. The trails are sort of marked on a gps system, but since the dunes change on a daily basis, the route isn't always clear.
Ib is an explorer. He's been driving for 6 years and he goes at least twice a week. He told me the trip would be done at 10. I figured I would be back to the hotel by 11 pm.
We started out by getting the car ready for offroading. Ib said "don't expect to be treated like a princess". I got out of the car in the 133 degree heat and helped uninflate tires at the edge of a road leading into the desert. Then we were supposed to put up a flag so drivers could see us when we were down in a dune so they wouldn't fly over the dune and hit us. But, Ib didn't have a flag. "How dangerous could this be though?" I thought to myself. Ib's 8 year old daughter's stuffed pink cat was in the car because she sometimes goes with him.
I was about to find out the answer to my question.
We started out on some mellow terrain. It took a bit of getting used to at first. You drive sideways across a dune, like a surfer surfing a wave. The car is constantly sliding down the dune and feels like it is about to turn over. People roll, but usually the sand is so soft that it's hard to roll the car unless you do something really stupid.
Night started falling and we were deep in the desert. We stopped at the top of a wide dune as the moon, which was barely a crescent, came out. We got out of the car and set up some chairs, and the group sat around and had tea and smoked either cigars or cigarettes. "What are we waiting for?" I asked Ib. "Complete darkness," he replied.
Once it was totally dark, Ib handed me the keys to his car. "We're going for a drive," he said. The rest of the group looked as surprised as I did. "But I don't know how to drive in the sand," I said. There was another female in the group, Carol, who's french and looks like a model. She's been driving for four years and is an explorer too. She had been telling me how long it took her to get the confidence to drive on easy stuff. And here I was, in the middle of some serious terrain.
Oh well, f*k it, I thought. I took the keys. My first maneuver involved getting the car out of the way of the other 8 cars parked on the dune. Ib's car was facing downhill on a steep sand slope. There was a car parked sideways in front of me. I had to roll 2 feet to get past the car next to me, and then execute a sharp turn to get around the car in front of me, without sliding into it. I managed to do that but was less than 6 inches from the car in front of me by the time I made my turn. Scary.
Then I made my first foray onto the side of a dune. You have to fight every driving instinct to do this. The car is sliding sideways as you are driving forward and you have to fine tune your pressure on the gas pedal to make sure you are gunning it on the more solid sand and easing off on the softer sand so you don't dig a hole. If the car decides to slide down you have to let it go and then figure out how to get out of the sand ditch. I got about 5 feet onto the dune and the car started to slide. Instead of turning the wheel down I tried to drive up more on the dune and then I hit some soft sand. We were getting stuck. I gunned the engine and all this sand flew off the front tire and into Ib's window. His face was covered with sand because he was sweating. I laughed and got stuck.
Ib tried to get us out, but couldn't. The jeep with the winch came and pulled us out. I thought that would be it for my driving, but Ib wanted me to keep going. He also said "just call me the sandman" because he was so covered in sand (the sand flying through the windows happened constantly the rest of the night because we drove with the windows wide open so we didn't have to have the air con on - what's the point of being in the desert if you aren't experiencing the desert fully?).
My second attempt went really well. I decided to treat the car like a boat and steering became easier, except that Ib said I was taking too tight turns, which can cause the tire, which is deflated, to come off its rim (called a pop out). He also said I should slow down coming over the top of a sand dune since you have to see what's on the down side.
But I was so afraid of getting stuck that it was hard to break coming over the top of a sand dune (that's one of the worst places to be stuck because it's hard to move the car with one set of wheels on one side of the dune, and the other set on the other side). The dunes rise up sharply like a shark fin. The last 2 or 3 feet are normally soft, baby powder textured sand. If you get stuck in that mess you can't drive out of it. So I kept flying over the dunes. Anyway, it was so dark, with no moon, I normally couldn't see where I was going anyway.
Then disaster struck. I went flying over a dune with the gas pedal to the floor because I had been zig zagging up a very soft dune. Ib was encouraging me, psyched I was able to drive up the dune. We came over the top, and for a moment it felt like the car had stopped. Then I realized we weren't stopped, we were falling.
The side we had come down on was super steep. There was a soft sand powder hole at the bottom of the dune and we landed smack in the middle of it. We hit so hard I ended up with a bruise from my seat belt (note in the picture there are NO tire marks behind the car).I heard the rest of the club, who had been watching me drive from another dune cheering. One egyptian guy yelled out "Franki went flying!" The car had made a horrible noise when it landed. I thought Ib was going to kill me.
Instead he laughed and said "Your first stuck!" It took 15 minutes of winching to get the truck out of the sand pit. Ib laid under the front tire to show how high up it was off the ground. Then the club told me to sit under the tire so they could take a picture for their web site. These pictures so just how soft the sand is here. The back of the truck buried on impact. The front left tire was buried (I also damaged the bumper) but the right tire was really high off the ground.
Some of the group decided to go home at 10, but I wanted to keep going. The terrain was getting more and more treacherous. At times Ib just let the car slide where ever it wanted to go. Other times we would fly over a dune and hit hard on the other side after flying through the air.
We stopped in a spot between the dunes around 11 pm. Everyone got out and we had dates and tea. Ib and I talked about work, life in general, camels, and then farting. He was telling me about how he had stopped hanging out with some of his friends because they were always having farting contests. He also said they sell this thing in his home country of Jordan that's like a stink bomb, and he used to throw them in his classroom because they would have to cancel class for at least two days because none of the lady teachers could stand the smell. I told him to bring some into the office (he and his family were heading to Jordan today for two weeks holiday) so we could get out of work. He laughed and said he didn't want his sons to know that these things existed because they might throw them in the house (they are 7 and 8 and apparently very badly behaved).
Around 1230 am we started to head home. That's when the trip turned into an epic. First we got a little lost and ended up on a soft dune. Everyone kept getting stuck. The only way out was to drive down this narrow corridor. As we headed towards the corridor Carol, who was in front of us, slammed on her brakes. In front of her was a newly constructed fence. She almost hit it, and then we almost hit her. Our cars were so close they couldn't winch Carol out because we were in the way. The guys in the group managed to push her out of the hole she had dug spinning her tires trying to not hit the fence. We then tried to back up the dune but the car slid forward into the fence.
About 20 guys came riding up on ATVs and started yelling in Arabic. Apparently a camel preserve had just put up the fence and they were yelling at us for being to close to the preserve. They yelled at Ib as he tried in vain to unstick the truck. His clutch was burning so bad that it smelled for the rest of the drive, but he couldn't move his car.
Finally the camel guys agreed to lower the fence so we could drive over it. We gunned up a dune while the camel guys screamed at us to not hit the camels. Then we got out and over the dune.
But a few minutes later the leader of our trip hit the fence in a new place. It took 15 minutes to get him unstuck and instead of being nice like Ib, he just cut the fence. Then another driver got stuck in the same place and had a pop out. While we tried to jack up his truck and fix the problem (which was not easy because the pop out tire was on the downside of the dune slope) the camel guys came over and started screaming that we would be arrested for ruining their fence. I was like great. It's 130 in the morning. I was tired, really dirty, and hot. I hadn't eaten anything since 11 in the morning so I was hungry but afraid to eat because I knew I would puke from all the spinning moves we were doing in the truck. And now we're going to jail, I thought.
But, Ib talked to the guys and in the end they let us go. We got the pop out fixed and Ib assured me we were only 10 km from the road and that we would be heading home shortly.
Then two more people got stuck. And Ib flew over a dune and landed in a sand pit. He had to be winched twice to get out of it and we thought for a few minutes we were going to have to leave the car because the position it was in made it so hard to pull out. The leader was the final stuck, ending up in a sand pit so deep that when the winch pulled him out we all had to move in case the cable broke and went flying.
Finally, at 4 am, we arrived at a gas station to reinflate the tires. Ib's car was first, but it took so long for the guy to fill the tires that it seemed he could do it faster by manually blowing into the valve. Ib was making fun of me because I was covered head to toe in sand and sweat. As Carol and I walked across the parking lot of the filling station to look at the damage she had done to her jeep from a stuck I left a trail of sand.
Ib dropped me off at the hotel at 530 in the morning. The intercon staff looked at me curiously as I made another sand trail through the lobby. I had blood on my feet from scratching them while I was trying to help unstick the truck barefoot. My shirt and pants were covered in dust. My hair was flying in a million different directions from driving in the heat with the windows open.
After showering I finally was able to lay down and shut my eyes. But right before I fell asleep I remembered the words of the trip leader: "so, next ride you will have your own jeep?"
Ha ha, I wish. No, I'd rather wreck someone else's.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
the problem child and I become friends
Poor problem child. He has such a short memory. He skulked around me for a few days, but then was behaving badly in meetings all day today. I've dealt with it as well as possible. Today when he kept interrupting my data modeling session, I let him pick where we would start modeling. When he had technical difficulties with his laptop I got the IT kid to come fix it immediately.
In a way, I guess I'm just resigned to his personality. There's one problem child on every project, at various levels of being bad. And normally I get along with difficult personalities.
But things took a turn for the worst today when I was trying to draw a strategy map. Problem child said my map was wrong (it wasn't) and proceeded to lecture me for thirty minutes on what a strategy is. Nothing he said was making any sense. So, a local who briefly owned my project before foisting it onto someone else who was in the meeting started to pick on the problem child. First he played a trick to get the problem child, who sometimes gets confused with the english language when he's in an argument, to say he was totally incompetent at defining strategies. The problem child finally realized what was going on after he had said "I am totally incompetent at defining strategies" 14, yes, 14 times. I felt bad for him because he didn't look pissed, like I would be, he looked hurt. Then the local said that the problem child was a bad communicator. And then he said that if people at the company were confused by the strategy map it was because the problem child didn't know what he was doing.
In all honesty, I think the local was doing this because we have a good work friendship and he knows the problem child picks on me. But, I fight my own fights. And when I say stuff to the problem child he doesn't care - I'm just a woman. When a man does it, the sole reason is humiliation.
As the local escalated his barrage, and the problem child looked more and more pathetic, standing in the front of the room, pants belted and pulled up past his belly button, socks showing a full inch because his pants are too short, his weirdly spindly shoulders curving more and more inward, and his giant gut protruding like a target that screamed "hit me!", I couldn't take it anymore. I turned to the local, who was sitting next to me, and said "stop it". I didn't say it loud, or in a mean way, but it shut down all of the noise in the room (there were about 7 people arguing at the same time in the meeting).
I suggested that I meet with the problem child alone to combine both of our thoughts on strategies. I suggested we meet again next week. Everyone was glad the meeting was finally over so no one argued and they ran out of the room like school kids finally released for the summer holidays.
Except the problem child. He came over to me and said, after he had gotten the email I sent him yesterday thanking him for acknowledging my team's good work on the project, that he was sorry he hadn't said more often how pleased he was with the job we have been doing. And then he said " I expect so much from you because of the work you do that sometimes I forget to say thank you." But, I really think he was thanking me for defending him in the meeting.
I take that as a truce. Somehow maybe I have some wasta here, not with powerful people, but with the ground troops. And regardless of what pains in the ass they can be, I guess I'll survive my last 4 weeks here. Even the local, whom I thought would be pissed at me, came up to me as I was leaving work this evening and said "you have to be the most diplomatic person I've ever met".
Okay, I know you're laughing now. But I swear he said it.
In a way, I guess I'm just resigned to his personality. There's one problem child on every project, at various levels of being bad. And normally I get along with difficult personalities.
But things took a turn for the worst today when I was trying to draw a strategy map. Problem child said my map was wrong (it wasn't) and proceeded to lecture me for thirty minutes on what a strategy is. Nothing he said was making any sense. So, a local who briefly owned my project before foisting it onto someone else who was in the meeting started to pick on the problem child. First he played a trick to get the problem child, who sometimes gets confused with the english language when he's in an argument, to say he was totally incompetent at defining strategies. The problem child finally realized what was going on after he had said "I am totally incompetent at defining strategies" 14, yes, 14 times. I felt bad for him because he didn't look pissed, like I would be, he looked hurt. Then the local said that the problem child was a bad communicator. And then he said that if people at the company were confused by the strategy map it was because the problem child didn't know what he was doing.
In all honesty, I think the local was doing this because we have a good work friendship and he knows the problem child picks on me. But, I fight my own fights. And when I say stuff to the problem child he doesn't care - I'm just a woman. When a man does it, the sole reason is humiliation.
As the local escalated his barrage, and the problem child looked more and more pathetic, standing in the front of the room, pants belted and pulled up past his belly button, socks showing a full inch because his pants are too short, his weirdly spindly shoulders curving more and more inward, and his giant gut protruding like a target that screamed "hit me!", I couldn't take it anymore. I turned to the local, who was sitting next to me, and said "stop it". I didn't say it loud, or in a mean way, but it shut down all of the noise in the room (there were about 7 people arguing at the same time in the meeting).
I suggested that I meet with the problem child alone to combine both of our thoughts on strategies. I suggested we meet again next week. Everyone was glad the meeting was finally over so no one argued and they ran out of the room like school kids finally released for the summer holidays.
Except the problem child. He came over to me and said, after he had gotten the email I sent him yesterday thanking him for acknowledging my team's good work on the project, that he was sorry he hadn't said more often how pleased he was with the job we have been doing. And then he said " I expect so much from you because of the work you do that sometimes I forget to say thank you." But, I really think he was thanking me for defending him in the meeting.
I take that as a truce. Somehow maybe I have some wasta here, not with powerful people, but with the ground troops. And regardless of what pains in the ass they can be, I guess I'll survive my last 4 weeks here. Even the local, whom I thought would be pissed at me, came up to me as I was leaving work this evening and said "you have to be the most diplomatic person I've ever met".
Okay, I know you're laughing now. But I swear he said it.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
bad interviews and polar bears
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/interviewees
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/polar_bear
Good for a few laughs. I would be the underdressed one...thanks for sending this Jason!
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/polar_bear
Good for a few laughs. I would be the underdressed one...thanks for sending this Jason!
a little dirty, but we've risen from the ashes
I went into work on Sunday with a plan in place to try to fix my project problems. I found out that, over the weekend, a decision had been made to put the problem child in charge of my project. I was absolutely furious, so much so that I temporarily couldn't finish reading the email because my sight went blank. As if I was going to work with that asshole. I decided to pull out all of the stops.
First, I went to the COO and gave him the status of the project. I casually mentioned we will finish all of the deliverables by the end of July, so there was no reason really for me to stick around until the 14th as is currently planned. I also said I was not happy with the problem child H delaying things, and that, since I have projects back in the US, and since he finds it so hard to work with me, it might be better for me to leave at the end of July.
I have to admit I was hoping he would say fine, get the hell out of here. But instead he asked who I wanted to run the project from the customer side. I suggested a guy, R, whom I get along with (even though he's canadian and all canadians are strange).
Within an hour, the change was made (much to the panic of R). Then the problem child decided to retaliate by blocking all forward progress on a web site that needs to be published by the end of the week. The problem child was told by the COO to have it done, and problem child said that I did not provide him with the data he needed and that he couldn't proceed any further.
To this point I have managed my temper and let things slide because working here is such a political mine field. But to suggest I did not do my job was about the worst thing problem child could do. I fired off an email that was so strongly worded one of my colleagues later said he could imagine me screaming every word in problem child's face.
I guess the thing is, the real work is done. I don't care if they throw me out of here because I stepped on someone's toes.
Within 10 minutes of sending the email I could hear a commotion on the floor below me as problem child was slapped down by the COO loudly and publicly. The COO accused him of lying which is funny because everyone lies here and no one says anything because it's just the way the culture works. I wondered what would happen next.
What happened is that the problem child has been avoiding me. Why? Because he's afraid of me now. Before he would waste my time having pointless arguments. Not any more. When he speaks to me, he does it calmly and actually seems a little timid. He carefully phrases everything so I don't take it the wrong way and fly off the handle again. And finally, our web site will be published.
To make sure there were no further issues that would get him in trouble, problem child sent me an email today saying I had done an excellent job. Which is so ironic since he was always my biggest critic. I responded back to him that it really meant a lot to me that he would say such nice things about my work. Hopefully things will continue in this "we all love each other so much" mode until I can get the hell out of here.
As for the web site, we publish tomorrow. I have a plan to make it more exciting than the launch of a NASA space shuttle. I'm even going to play the rocky theme song once it gets moved to sharepoint and the test user is able to access it. Even the IT guys, who, well, are IT guys, are getting excited about it (they have to publish it and they were complaining about the extra work, so I've been dealing with them as well as the problem child which has been making me insane because I've set up the web site so that all they have to do is push a button to get it to publish).
All ends well. At least for today.
First, I went to the COO and gave him the status of the project. I casually mentioned we will finish all of the deliverables by the end of July, so there was no reason really for me to stick around until the 14th as is currently planned. I also said I was not happy with the problem child H delaying things, and that, since I have projects back in the US, and since he finds it so hard to work with me, it might be better for me to leave at the end of July.
I have to admit I was hoping he would say fine, get the hell out of here. But instead he asked who I wanted to run the project from the customer side. I suggested a guy, R, whom I get along with (even though he's canadian and all canadians are strange).
Within an hour, the change was made (much to the panic of R). Then the problem child decided to retaliate by blocking all forward progress on a web site that needs to be published by the end of the week. The problem child was told by the COO to have it done, and problem child said that I did not provide him with the data he needed and that he couldn't proceed any further.
To this point I have managed my temper and let things slide because working here is such a political mine field. But to suggest I did not do my job was about the worst thing problem child could do. I fired off an email that was so strongly worded one of my colleagues later said he could imagine me screaming every word in problem child's face.
I guess the thing is, the real work is done. I don't care if they throw me out of here because I stepped on someone's toes.
Within 10 minutes of sending the email I could hear a commotion on the floor below me as problem child was slapped down by the COO loudly and publicly. The COO accused him of lying which is funny because everyone lies here and no one says anything because it's just the way the culture works. I wondered what would happen next.
What happened is that the problem child has been avoiding me. Why? Because he's afraid of me now. Before he would waste my time having pointless arguments. Not any more. When he speaks to me, he does it calmly and actually seems a little timid. He carefully phrases everything so I don't take it the wrong way and fly off the handle again. And finally, our web site will be published.
To make sure there were no further issues that would get him in trouble, problem child sent me an email today saying I had done an excellent job. Which is so ironic since he was always my biggest critic. I responded back to him that it really meant a lot to me that he would say such nice things about my work. Hopefully things will continue in this "we all love each other so much" mode until I can get the hell out of here.
As for the web site, we publish tomorrow. I have a plan to make it more exciting than the launch of a NASA space shuttle. I'm even going to play the rocky theme song once it gets moved to sharepoint and the test user is able to access it. Even the IT guys, who, well, are IT guys, are getting excited about it (they have to publish it and they were complaining about the extra work, so I've been dealing with them as well as the problem child which has been making me insane because I've set up the web site so that all they have to do is push a button to get it to publish).
All ends well. At least for today.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Mr. Salt and Ms. Pepper discover a crashed UFO
This is my brain after 8 hours of software testing...
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