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.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
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...
why we'll never win a war here
I've been thinking this week that my project is a microcosm example of why Westerners will never succeed here.
I didn't want to come back to do this project. But the customer begged me. They even put in the statement of work that I had to be the consultant. I made demands for the project to ensure it would be a success, such as getting to pick the team that would work for me, having a proper work area (conference room, projector, white board), and having customer commitment. Oh sure, they said, you'll get everything you want.
Then I get here and it's like an out of control circus. Our working environment is horrible and we never have enough room to even set up our laptops. Forget working groups, the conference room is hardly ever available, and even when we have it booked we can be thrown out at the customer's whim. My company assigned a project manager who has something personal against me, and she is constantly reassigning my resources so, on a daily basis, I have no idea which team members will be showing up. That wouldn't be bad if at least they were doing other work but they aren't. They are sitting at home, or in the office, doing nothing while I have to struggle to do their work on top of mine because I don't want to blow my schedule.
The customer has tons of political issues going on in the company and they keep trying to involve my team in them. Keeping some of the junior members out of this game has been hard because they think they are gaining some power from this mess when in fact it's more like a set up. Keeping my company's resources working even 4 hours a day when I'm here is hard, and when I'm gone it's a disaster. Only the sub contractor working on the project is reliable. If I didn't have him I don't know what I would do. Meanwhile, there's a lot of pressure from my company to make this a referenceable project even though they are doing everything they can to sabotage it.
The customer has unreasonable deadlines for things, and try to force me to drop current tasks to work on unrelated, non-critical tasks. Then they ask me "why isn't this critical task done?" Even though I have a chain of emails showing I've been redirected and they've accepted that by forcing me to work on a non-critical task they are introducing risk of something critical not getting completed they refuse to take any responsibility.
And then they fire the people who are supposed to help us figure out who in the company we need to work with, and have assigned a new guy who's been with the company for one month and who doesn't even have a desk to sit at to be the head of the project.
And that's the way business is done here. Finger pointing back to the people who are trying to help. No matter how hard you work, someone is always unhappy and critical. People play political games and back stab each other and then try to force us poor consultants to take sides. And in the end, when we leave, I'm sure they'll claim that the project is a failure because it's easier to do nothing than to actually learn how to be self sufficient and successful.
People work here for years. I don't know how. Oh wait, I do. Last night at a happy hour with some people from a sister company it was recommended I get a prescription for xanax.
I didn't want to come back to do this project. But the customer begged me. They even put in the statement of work that I had to be the consultant. I made demands for the project to ensure it would be a success, such as getting to pick the team that would work for me, having a proper work area (conference room, projector, white board), and having customer commitment. Oh sure, they said, you'll get everything you want.
Then I get here and it's like an out of control circus. Our working environment is horrible and we never have enough room to even set up our laptops. Forget working groups, the conference room is hardly ever available, and even when we have it booked we can be thrown out at the customer's whim. My company assigned a project manager who has something personal against me, and she is constantly reassigning my resources so, on a daily basis, I have no idea which team members will be showing up. That wouldn't be bad if at least they were doing other work but they aren't. They are sitting at home, or in the office, doing nothing while I have to struggle to do their work on top of mine because I don't want to blow my schedule.
The customer has tons of political issues going on in the company and they keep trying to involve my team in them. Keeping some of the junior members out of this game has been hard because they think they are gaining some power from this mess when in fact it's more like a set up. Keeping my company's resources working even 4 hours a day when I'm here is hard, and when I'm gone it's a disaster. Only the sub contractor working on the project is reliable. If I didn't have him I don't know what I would do. Meanwhile, there's a lot of pressure from my company to make this a referenceable project even though they are doing everything they can to sabotage it.
The customer has unreasonable deadlines for things, and try to force me to drop current tasks to work on unrelated, non-critical tasks. Then they ask me "why isn't this critical task done?" Even though I have a chain of emails showing I've been redirected and they've accepted that by forcing me to work on a non-critical task they are introducing risk of something critical not getting completed they refuse to take any responsibility.
And then they fire the people who are supposed to help us figure out who in the company we need to work with, and have assigned a new guy who's been with the company for one month and who doesn't even have a desk to sit at to be the head of the project.
And that's the way business is done here. Finger pointing back to the people who are trying to help. No matter how hard you work, someone is always unhappy and critical. People play political games and back stab each other and then try to force us poor consultants to take sides. And in the end, when we leave, I'm sure they'll claim that the project is a failure because it's easier to do nothing than to actually learn how to be self sufficient and successful.
People work here for years. I don't know how. Oh wait, I do. Last night at a happy hour with some people from a sister company it was recommended I get a prescription for xanax.
FUBAR
I'm wondering how much worse things will get here before they get better.
My project sponsor was fired on Sunday. His back up was fired the Thursday before. There was no explanation of why this happened, and I found out from other people in the company, not because I was informed before hand.
Wednesday I was back in the office after being gone for two weeks. The problem child H now has the project moved under his department. He is so gleeful about this that it almost makes me sick when I talk to him. Luckily I managed to maintain a good relationship with him so the splatter hasn't hit me directly. But still. Everyone in the company who liked my project sponsor keeps asking me what happened. As if I know. I'm avoiding politics here as much as possible but people keep trying to engage me in a speculation game of what happened. At this point, I trust no one and refuse to say anything. That's in turn creating a sense of paranoia that I know something and so people have been asking me if they are going to lose their jobs. They don't believe me when I say I don't know. That's causing them to do things like stand behind my chair while I'm trying to work, speaking in Arabic, saying my name and the name of my project sponsor. If you're going to talk about me, and not in English, do it in your office.
To make matters more interesting, I'm getting criticized for things that are just insane. I was yelled at yesterday for not putting the names of my customer on the to: list of an email in the order of their importance (COO first, etc.). I was like are you god damn kidding me? A sales guy claimed to H that I was having secret meetings with other sales people behind his back (which, while also not true, is completely improbable as I haven't been in the office to have any meetings). H suggested I sit with the sales guy and talk to him to make him feel better.
So, even though I have a ton of work to do, I sat in the sales guy's office for an hour yesterday and tried to discuss his concerns with the project. It turns out, he has none. He made up his concerns to force me to talk to him. I sat there while he tried to grill me about my love life (short conversation, that one) and then he tried to force me to agree to go to dinner with him. I hate this kind of stuff. I don't want to hang out or talk to anyone here anymore. I just want to get done and go home.
H is also throwing all these road blocks in my way to continue moving the project forward. Meanwhile, since Wednesday, I've had to waste hours of my life I'll never get back briefing the new project sponsors on what we have done and what we have left to do. That's right, sponsors. Since Wednesday 3 people have taken over and then resigned as the project sponsor. I'm hoping the guy I talked to on Thursday will stick at least for a week so I can get some work done. The latest project sponsor is younger than me and has no experience in this stuff. He claimed the project was behind schedule even though we are two weeks ahead of schedule and have delivered more stuff than was required. I've been driving my team to make sure that everything is high quality so the customer can't nit pick up to death about spelling errors or whatever. The team is taking it pretty well considering everyone at the customer site is saying "why work so hard, the project is just going to be shut down".
And then yesterday, after working an hour of overtime to deliver some bullshit report to H, he smiled and said to me "Thanks, but this report doesn't matter, because as soon as you leave we're replacing your software tool with another tool. What do you think about that?" I know he was baiting me because there were some important decision makers in the room. So I said "Assuming you've done a trade off analysis that shows that tool will work for you, you need to make decisions based on the best engineering approach to your current problem. I also assume you've analyzed the cost of changing tools along with the required training. By the way, that tool isn't even on the Gartner quadrant. I assume you've checked with the vendor to make sure you'll be able to get tech support if something goes wrong, since it's not a well established company and may be lacking resources." Asshole. I smiled back at him. One of the decision makers asked if H had checked into any of the issues I had just brought up as I walked out of the room.
Only 5 weeks left. If I survive this project and get it delivered on time, with customer approval, I can do anything.
My project sponsor was fired on Sunday. His back up was fired the Thursday before. There was no explanation of why this happened, and I found out from other people in the company, not because I was informed before hand.
Wednesday I was back in the office after being gone for two weeks. The problem child H now has the project moved under his department. He is so gleeful about this that it almost makes me sick when I talk to him. Luckily I managed to maintain a good relationship with him so the splatter hasn't hit me directly. But still. Everyone in the company who liked my project sponsor keeps asking me what happened. As if I know. I'm avoiding politics here as much as possible but people keep trying to engage me in a speculation game of what happened. At this point, I trust no one and refuse to say anything. That's in turn creating a sense of paranoia that I know something and so people have been asking me if they are going to lose their jobs. They don't believe me when I say I don't know. That's causing them to do things like stand behind my chair while I'm trying to work, speaking in Arabic, saying my name and the name of my project sponsor. If you're going to talk about me, and not in English, do it in your office.
To make matters more interesting, I'm getting criticized for things that are just insane. I was yelled at yesterday for not putting the names of my customer on the to: list of an email in the order of their importance (COO first, etc.). I was like are you god damn kidding me? A sales guy claimed to H that I was having secret meetings with other sales people behind his back (which, while also not true, is completely improbable as I haven't been in the office to have any meetings). H suggested I sit with the sales guy and talk to him to make him feel better.
So, even though I have a ton of work to do, I sat in the sales guy's office for an hour yesterday and tried to discuss his concerns with the project. It turns out, he has none. He made up his concerns to force me to talk to him. I sat there while he tried to grill me about my love life (short conversation, that one) and then he tried to force me to agree to go to dinner with him. I hate this kind of stuff. I don't want to hang out or talk to anyone here anymore. I just want to get done and go home.
H is also throwing all these road blocks in my way to continue moving the project forward. Meanwhile, since Wednesday, I've had to waste hours of my life I'll never get back briefing the new project sponsors on what we have done and what we have left to do. That's right, sponsors. Since Wednesday 3 people have taken over and then resigned as the project sponsor. I'm hoping the guy I talked to on Thursday will stick at least for a week so I can get some work done. The latest project sponsor is younger than me and has no experience in this stuff. He claimed the project was behind schedule even though we are two weeks ahead of schedule and have delivered more stuff than was required. I've been driving my team to make sure that everything is high quality so the customer can't nit pick up to death about spelling errors or whatever. The team is taking it pretty well considering everyone at the customer site is saying "why work so hard, the project is just going to be shut down".
And then yesterday, after working an hour of overtime to deliver some bullshit report to H, he smiled and said to me "Thanks, but this report doesn't matter, because as soon as you leave we're replacing your software tool with another tool. What do you think about that?" I know he was baiting me because there were some important decision makers in the room. So I said "Assuming you've done a trade off analysis that shows that tool will work for you, you need to make decisions based on the best engineering approach to your current problem. I also assume you've analyzed the cost of changing tools along with the required training. By the way, that tool isn't even on the Gartner quadrant. I assume you've checked with the vendor to make sure you'll be able to get tech support if something goes wrong, since it's not a well established company and may be lacking resources." Asshole. I smiled back at him. One of the decision makers asked if H had checked into any of the issues I had just brought up as I walked out of the room.
Only 5 weeks left. If I survive this project and get it delivered on time, with customer approval, I can do anything.
helicopter
Last night I dreamed that I was in a war zone and I had a team of 6 people with me, men and women. A helicopter came in to rescue us because we had just finished our mission. I climbed up a rope and by taking up my end of the rope I was able to pull the rest of my team off the ground into the helicopter. But, for some reason, every time one of my team members would get on the helicopter, they would cut the rope a little shorter (there is no way to imagine the rope configuration I dreamed about as it was completely illogical).
By the time I pulled up the last person, which required me to pull myself up on my rope and then drop my weight down (kind of like belaying someone) my arms were really tired. I wanted to get onto the helicopter. By then we were way above the ground because there were still bombs going off. I went to hand a guy on the helicopter my end of the rope so he could pull me in, but I realized the rope was too short for it to reach him. I lowered myself on one end of the rope to make the other end shorter, and realized that I still couldn't reach the helicopter.
People on the helicopter started shouting at me to not let go of either end of the rope, otherwise I would fall. Some were telling me to make one end longer, others were saying to do the opposite. I realized no matter what I did I would never be able to get on the helicopter. I asked the people I had just pulled up to get another rope to pull me in and they said they were too tired and they walked away. My arms were getting shaky by then and I realized I was about to lose my grip on the rope. The guy who was supposed to be pulling me into the helicopter looked at me and said "that's going to be a very bad way to die".
Then I woke up.
By the time I pulled up the last person, which required me to pull myself up on my rope and then drop my weight down (kind of like belaying someone) my arms were really tired. I wanted to get onto the helicopter. By then we were way above the ground because there were still bombs going off. I went to hand a guy on the helicopter my end of the rope so he could pull me in, but I realized the rope was too short for it to reach him. I lowered myself on one end of the rope to make the other end shorter, and realized that I still couldn't reach the helicopter.
People on the helicopter started shouting at me to not let go of either end of the rope, otherwise I would fall. Some were telling me to make one end longer, others were saying to do the opposite. I realized no matter what I did I would never be able to get on the helicopter. I asked the people I had just pulled up to get another rope to pull me in and they said they were too tired and they walked away. My arms were getting shaky by then and I realized I was about to lose my grip on the rope. The guy who was supposed to be pulling me into the helicopter looked at me and said "that's going to be a very bad way to die".
Then I woke up.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
total disaster
Friday morning I thought that all of the problems on my project were contained. The "project manager" is on vacation for three weeks, so I don't have to read her annoying emails demanding I drop everything to go have some pointless meeting with her to discuss the "schedule" when she isn't even managing the schedule, I am. Even though one of our key players left, in an hour my customer and I figured out a solution. I also worked out this weekend how to finish the project on time, with all of the deliverables, in spite of my company's attempts to derail things by reassigning me unexpectedly to teach for a military customer, taking me away from the project for yet another week. The problem child H has been contained. I figured after I finish the training there is another week of really hard work, and then two weeks of wind down time where we wouldn't have to work so hard before I could be on a plane home.
Ah, why do I delude myself that anything in this country will work?
In the middle of class today, right as I was walking students through an exercise, my phone blew up. I paused to let the students catch up to me, and read the first email. The customer I work for, Dr. M, quit. In fact, was on his way out the door. I responded and his email bounced back - they had already disabled his email.
I was like are you god damn KIDDING ME? It was almost impossible to concentrate as my brain ran around in hamster circles going "NOW WHAT DO I DO?????????????" My stomach turned into a little rock fearing H would be put in charge.
About 10 minutes later all of my students were talking about how they had received an email that Dr. M had quit. I was accused of withholding information. A little political dust up occurred. I finally got everyone calmed down enough to finish the class for the day. I also ensured that the person taking over the project would be a guy I like to work with, and not H.
But now here I am, feeling totally demoralized, wondering, after all these months, if the project is going to crash and burn. To prevent that means keeping up the pace, and increasing it to make up for having two missing customer bodies (I am going to have to do their work because the replacement person can't, for example, prepare the briefing for the steering committee because he has a full time job). Every day I'm on the firing line from 7 am until I go home at 5 pm. I never have 15 minutes to sit at a desk, staring into space wondering why the hell I came here because I constantly have at least two people yelling at me or yelling for me. That's why when I go home at night I talk to no one, go no where, and submerge myself in drawing diagrams. It's been a while since I've been under this much pressure, in a foreign country, without having even my own company's resources to rely on. They are as bad as my customer.
Contact with the outside world? No thanks.
If I manage to get out of here in one piece I will be shocked. I'm pretty sure my face is twitching. Is that the sign of a psychotic breakdown?
Ah, why do I delude myself that anything in this country will work?
In the middle of class today, right as I was walking students through an exercise, my phone blew up. I paused to let the students catch up to me, and read the first email. The customer I work for, Dr. M, quit. In fact, was on his way out the door. I responded and his email bounced back - they had already disabled his email.
I was like are you god damn KIDDING ME? It was almost impossible to concentrate as my brain ran around in hamster circles going "NOW WHAT DO I DO?????????????" My stomach turned into a little rock fearing H would be put in charge.
About 10 minutes later all of my students were talking about how they had received an email that Dr. M had quit. I was accused of withholding information. A little political dust up occurred. I finally got everyone calmed down enough to finish the class for the day. I also ensured that the person taking over the project would be a guy I like to work with, and not H.
But now here I am, feeling totally demoralized, wondering, after all these months, if the project is going to crash and burn. To prevent that means keeping up the pace, and increasing it to make up for having two missing customer bodies (I am going to have to do their work because the replacement person can't, for example, prepare the briefing for the steering committee because he has a full time job). Every day I'm on the firing line from 7 am until I go home at 5 pm. I never have 15 minutes to sit at a desk, staring into space wondering why the hell I came here because I constantly have at least two people yelling at me or yelling for me. That's why when I go home at night I talk to no one, go no where, and submerge myself in drawing diagrams. It's been a while since I've been under this much pressure, in a foreign country, without having even my own company's resources to rely on. They are as bad as my customer.
Contact with the outside world? No thanks.
If I manage to get out of here in one piece I will be shocked. I'm pretty sure my face is twitching. Is that the sign of a psychotic breakdown?
welcome to your box, bitch
Last Thursday completed my plan to throw my problem child on the project in a box, and keep him there.
He's an obnoxious egyptian, we'll just call him H (he's the guy my customer tried to get fired as depicted in the blog colloquial). Since my project has started he's try to throw one road block after another at me to keep the project from progressing. He's supposed to be in charge of document management. The dude is so disorganized that he can't even find current versions of documents. He's supposed to learn how to use my software to get out of the mode of creating processes in word documents (how stone age) and into modeling them so they can be simulated.
Besides breaking things constantly so I have to fix them for him, he throws me under the bus in front of upper management, saying absurd stuff like "she never helps me" and even when I point out that I spend half my day with him he says "I never see her".
So, I started documenting in a spreadsheet how often we were meeting and what I was teaching him at each meeting, assigning a percentage to each skill (e.g. 75% comfortable drawing a business process diagram without help). I also made the meetings formal invites. In our last steering committee meeting when he started saying he hasn't gotten any training I pulled out the spreadsheet. Then he claimed I made up the percentages and that we had never discussed them, which was a total lie. So I produced all of the emails about the training I had given him. When I called him on his lie, in this sort of subtle but not really way, he changed his argument and said he would have to teach other people what I'm teaching him, and he couldn't do it.
Fine. Last Tuesday through Thursday he was in a formal training class I taught. He spent the first two days sitting there saying nothing was working. Time and again I had to go over and say "H, you can't display your diagram because you haven't opened it". Etc. Then he started carrying on long, loud conversations while I was trying to teach. I would give him a verbal warning and then send a follow up email.
The last day I said "I'm going to do something no person should ever do - I'm going to let an egyptian drive". I made him come up to the front of the room and teach class for two hours. He looked like he was going to cry. The other 15 students in the class liked me and so they harassed him mercilessly. He kept saying "I'm done teaching, you come up here" and I would say "no, keep going, you'll have to do this on your own when I'm gone". After the two hours were up I made the class clap for him.
Which all leads to my grand plan. In the next steering committee meeting, when he tries to report that, after formal training, he still can't do his job, I will point out that he in fact taught the class for a few hours, and everyone applauded for him at the end. Then I will also bring up the emails and say "maybe if there are things you still don't know it's because you were talking when you were supposed to be doing your exercises."
Welcome to your box, bitch.
He's an obnoxious egyptian, we'll just call him H (he's the guy my customer tried to get fired as depicted in the blog colloquial). Since my project has started he's try to throw one road block after another at me to keep the project from progressing. He's supposed to be in charge of document management. The dude is so disorganized that he can't even find current versions of documents. He's supposed to learn how to use my software to get out of the mode of creating processes in word documents (how stone age) and into modeling them so they can be simulated.
Besides breaking things constantly so I have to fix them for him, he throws me under the bus in front of upper management, saying absurd stuff like "she never helps me" and even when I point out that I spend half my day with him he says "I never see her".
So, I started documenting in a spreadsheet how often we were meeting and what I was teaching him at each meeting, assigning a percentage to each skill (e.g. 75% comfortable drawing a business process diagram without help). I also made the meetings formal invites. In our last steering committee meeting when he started saying he hasn't gotten any training I pulled out the spreadsheet. Then he claimed I made up the percentages and that we had never discussed them, which was a total lie. So I produced all of the emails about the training I had given him. When I called him on his lie, in this sort of subtle but not really way, he changed his argument and said he would have to teach other people what I'm teaching him, and he couldn't do it.
Fine. Last Tuesday through Thursday he was in a formal training class I taught. He spent the first two days sitting there saying nothing was working. Time and again I had to go over and say "H, you can't display your diagram because you haven't opened it". Etc. Then he started carrying on long, loud conversations while I was trying to teach. I would give him a verbal warning and then send a follow up email.
The last day I said "I'm going to do something no person should ever do - I'm going to let an egyptian drive". I made him come up to the front of the room and teach class for two hours. He looked like he was going to cry. The other 15 students in the class liked me and so they harassed him mercilessly. He kept saying "I'm done teaching, you come up here" and I would say "no, keep going, you'll have to do this on your own when I'm gone". After the two hours were up I made the class clap for him.
Which all leads to my grand plan. In the next steering committee meeting, when he tries to report that, after formal training, he still can't do his job, I will point out that he in fact taught the class for a few hours, and everyone applauded for him at the end. Then I will also bring up the emails and say "maybe if there are things you still don't know it's because you were talking when you were supposed to be doing your exercises."
Welcome to your box, bitch.
Friday, July 2, 2010
can't take me anywhere
Suffice it to say, it was a rough week. On top of the changes in scope for the project, and the reorgs going on with my customer, one of the main supporters of our project was fired on Thursday. He is supposed to take over the project while my customer is away on vacation for three weeks. On top of teaching class for 9 hours a day, and trying to run my project, I also had to deal with that.
My customer, Dr. M, and I were about to embark on a trip to a bar called Frankie's for a well deserved happy hour when my internal "project manager" (that's her title anyway, though the only thing she seems to manage is her vacation schedule) told me that I have to do some more training for the military. I was incensed. She asked me to do it earlier this week and I said no. I didn't want to be away from my project for a week because that would delay my return trip. Did she turn around and tell the customer no? Uh, no. She said I would do it.
I went off and said that since she had agreed with my other customer that I would deliver things on the project that weren't even in the statement of work and that doubled my workload that, if I had to miss a week to do the other training, things were going to start dropping on the floor. I have to put together an email about what we aren't going to finish, on top of everything else I have to do, because the "project manager" left for holidays for 2 weeks after dropping that little bomb on me.
Needless to say, I was ready for a drink. Dr. M and I showed up at Frankie's to await the rest of the Thursday afternoon crew, only to discover it doesn't open until 7 PM (it was 5 PM). I was like wah, will anything go right today? The bartender gave me a tour of Frankie's and we told him we would see him in 2 hours.
We went out to the beach bar and waited for people to show. A brit couple showed up and I ended up talking to them the whole night. It turns out the husband loves sharks as much as I do, and the wife is recovering from knee surgery. They are the type of couple that finish each other's sentences. I was laughing so hard at their description of the wife's first impression of the middle east. And they invited me over for an all made from hand dinner next Friday. The wife said I seemed to be in need of some mothering. I was like yeah, bring that on, and can you also make me some lemon cookies?
Then the big boss showed up with a guy in local dress, and we were introduced. The husband of the brit couple was telling me a story about tiger sharks so I didn't pay much attention to the local, which seemed to upset him. He stuck a piece of skewered chicken in my face and tried to feed me. I was like get that away from me because chickens are gross. Then he offered me a cigarette and I accidentally (because I had had two glasses of wine on an empty stomach) said he smoked girly cigarettes (he did - the really skinny ones) and said if he wanted a real cigarette he should smoke one of mine (gauloises blue - the french got something right). He did and had a coughing fit.
We were sitting in this area of the bar that's all sofas, except for where the local and I were sitting. I had a chair and he was sitting on the ottoman. At one point the husband, wife, and I were comparing knee scars (I won, surprise surprise) and the local almost fell over on me (guess he doesn't see many bare legs). Then he offered to fill up my wine glass, which was empty. At that point I accidentally, momentarily forgot where I was and I punched him in the arm and said "you're just trying to get me drunk". He almost fell off the ottoman. I noticed that the big boss was looking at me either trying not to laugh or because he was suddenly overcome by a migraine.
After the local left, the big boss, who was sitting across from me on a sofa, said "do you know who that was?" I hadn't even really heard the guy's name. It turns out he's the nephew of the sheik in charge of 'dhabi. I was like, um, oh, really? because I had been sort of rude to him. Then the big boss said "do you realize you punched the nephew of a sheik?" I mean, it's not like I punched him in the face. It was his arm.
Dr. M thought it was funny. And he gave me some advice about working here:
1. you have to have a high tolerance for stupidity
2. never get between two locals
Anyway, I'm looking forward to my home cooked dinner that will hopefully happen on Friday!
My customer, Dr. M, and I were about to embark on a trip to a bar called Frankie's for a well deserved happy hour when my internal "project manager" (that's her title anyway, though the only thing she seems to manage is her vacation schedule) told me that I have to do some more training for the military. I was incensed. She asked me to do it earlier this week and I said no. I didn't want to be away from my project for a week because that would delay my return trip. Did she turn around and tell the customer no? Uh, no. She said I would do it.
I went off and said that since she had agreed with my other customer that I would deliver things on the project that weren't even in the statement of work and that doubled my workload that, if I had to miss a week to do the other training, things were going to start dropping on the floor. I have to put together an email about what we aren't going to finish, on top of everything else I have to do, because the "project manager" left for holidays for 2 weeks after dropping that little bomb on me.
Needless to say, I was ready for a drink. Dr. M and I showed up at Frankie's to await the rest of the Thursday afternoon crew, only to discover it doesn't open until 7 PM (it was 5 PM). I was like wah, will anything go right today? The bartender gave me a tour of Frankie's and we told him we would see him in 2 hours.
We went out to the beach bar and waited for people to show. A brit couple showed up and I ended up talking to them the whole night. It turns out the husband loves sharks as much as I do, and the wife is recovering from knee surgery. They are the type of couple that finish each other's sentences. I was laughing so hard at their description of the wife's first impression of the middle east. And they invited me over for an all made from hand dinner next Friday. The wife said I seemed to be in need of some mothering. I was like yeah, bring that on, and can you also make me some lemon cookies?
Then the big boss showed up with a guy in local dress, and we were introduced. The husband of the brit couple was telling me a story about tiger sharks so I didn't pay much attention to the local, which seemed to upset him. He stuck a piece of skewered chicken in my face and tried to feed me. I was like get that away from me because chickens are gross. Then he offered me a cigarette and I accidentally (because I had had two glasses of wine on an empty stomach) said he smoked girly cigarettes (he did - the really skinny ones) and said if he wanted a real cigarette he should smoke one of mine (gauloises blue - the french got something right). He did and had a coughing fit.
We were sitting in this area of the bar that's all sofas, except for where the local and I were sitting. I had a chair and he was sitting on the ottoman. At one point the husband, wife, and I were comparing knee scars (I won, surprise surprise) and the local almost fell over on me (guess he doesn't see many bare legs). Then he offered to fill up my wine glass, which was empty. At that point I accidentally, momentarily forgot where I was and I punched him in the arm and said "you're just trying to get me drunk". He almost fell off the ottoman. I noticed that the big boss was looking at me either trying not to laugh or because he was suddenly overcome by a migraine.
After the local left, the big boss, who was sitting across from me on a sofa, said "do you know who that was?" I hadn't even really heard the guy's name. It turns out he's the nephew of the sheik in charge of 'dhabi. I was like, um, oh, really? because I had been sort of rude to him. Then the big boss said "do you realize you punched the nephew of a sheik?" I mean, it's not like I punched him in the face. It was his arm.
Dr. M thought it was funny. And he gave me some advice about working here:
1. you have to have a high tolerance for stupidity
2. never get between two locals
Anyway, I'm looking forward to my home cooked dinner that will hopefully happen on Friday!
Monday, June 28, 2010
comparatively, I'm a good dancer
If you could have all of the fortunes of Steve Ballmer, but there was a vid of you dancing around like this, would you choose to be rich?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4860483760049380308#
Me neither. At least, when I'm feeling tired and frustrated, it makes me laugh.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4860483760049380308#
Me neither. At least, when I'm feeling tired and frustrated, it makes me laugh.
just another frantic sunday
Yesterday I got back into the customer office after being gone for a week. I had given everyone on the team explicit instructions on what to do while I was gone. I told them to contact me if they had any questions or ran out of work. Every evening when I checked in with them, things were going fine. I even came by here on Tuesday to drop off the latest version of the software we’re using, and they were supposed to do an upgrade, which takes about 30 minutes.
I was here a hour early to catch up before the rest of the team came. But I couldn’t get to my notebook or papers that I needed because security decided while I was gone that everyone needed to start storing their stuff in a locked cabinet. So my things were put in a cabinet for which no one could find the key. They didn’t get my things unlocked until noon.
Which in the end didn’t matter because I got pulled into a meeting right after I arrived to deal with a major issue that came up at the steering committee that no one in my company who attended the meeting bothered to warn me about. I had to put together a bunch of documents to show that a guy who is trying to throw my company under the bus saying we aren’t doing things was lying. It also turned out some things didn’t get done, even though my team had told me they were completed. It appears they spent the week I was gone screwing around, so now I am having to reshuffle tasks because the software upgrade isn’t done. Of course I’m responsible because I’m leading this project, but I am more than annoyed that my team lied to me about their progress.
So instead of doing my real work, I’ve been trying to get everything else done so we can close some action items. My team keeps disappearing when I try to delegate things to them. They’ve wasted two days now upgrading and adding access controls to our server. That task should literally take 2 hours at most. My customer is screaming at me because it isn’t done. The whole team is hanging out in the server room doing god knows what while I’m shuffling from fire to fire here and meeting to meeting.
Just when it seems things can’t get any worse, today in an organizational chart review meeting, which should have taken 5 minutes, the COO decided to reorganize all the departments and change their names. So now there is a bunch of unplanned rework for that. I’m gone the next three days to do training and if my team continues to screw around we are going to be behind schedule. And the training is supposed to be for only 10 people per session (I’m doing 3 sessions in the next three weeks) they’ve brought in people from a sister company that want to be trained as well. So it’s just me trying to train 15 people per session who have the attention span of 5 seconds and who speak English usually as a third language and who don’t have any real technical skills.
Which is not the only scope creep we’re having. The customer keeps asking for more and more stuff, and the “project manager” tells me she’ll say no to it, and then gets into meetings and agrees to everything. Then she doesn’t even bother to tell me what she’s agreed to so I get blindsided when the customer says “why isn’t this done? [the project manager] said you would have this finished today”. Fine, I adjust to change. But the project manager also keeps randomly pulling my resources so they can do things like have a day off because they’re exhausted from working a few hours of overtime. Which I might feel bad about if they were working even half the hours they said they were working.
And if one more person here says “relax and enjoy life” I will scream.
I was here a hour early to catch up before the rest of the team came. But I couldn’t get to my notebook or papers that I needed because security decided while I was gone that everyone needed to start storing their stuff in a locked cabinet. So my things were put in a cabinet for which no one could find the key. They didn’t get my things unlocked until noon.
Which in the end didn’t matter because I got pulled into a meeting right after I arrived to deal with a major issue that came up at the steering committee that no one in my company who attended the meeting bothered to warn me about. I had to put together a bunch of documents to show that a guy who is trying to throw my company under the bus saying we aren’t doing things was lying. It also turned out some things didn’t get done, even though my team had told me they were completed. It appears they spent the week I was gone screwing around, so now I am having to reshuffle tasks because the software upgrade isn’t done. Of course I’m responsible because I’m leading this project, but I am more than annoyed that my team lied to me about their progress.
So instead of doing my real work, I’ve been trying to get everything else done so we can close some action items. My team keeps disappearing when I try to delegate things to them. They’ve wasted two days now upgrading and adding access controls to our server. That task should literally take 2 hours at most. My customer is screaming at me because it isn’t done. The whole team is hanging out in the server room doing god knows what while I’m shuffling from fire to fire here and meeting to meeting.
Just when it seems things can’t get any worse, today in an organizational chart review meeting, which should have taken 5 minutes, the COO decided to reorganize all the departments and change their names. So now there is a bunch of unplanned rework for that. I’m gone the next three days to do training and if my team continues to screw around we are going to be behind schedule. And the training is supposed to be for only 10 people per session (I’m doing 3 sessions in the next three weeks) they’ve brought in people from a sister company that want to be trained as well. So it’s just me trying to train 15 people per session who have the attention span of 5 seconds and who speak English usually as a third language and who don’t have any real technical skills.
Which is not the only scope creep we’re having. The customer keeps asking for more and more stuff, and the “project manager” tells me she’ll say no to it, and then gets into meetings and agrees to everything. Then she doesn’t even bother to tell me what she’s agreed to so I get blindsided when the customer says “why isn’t this done? [the project manager] said you would have this finished today”. Fine, I adjust to change. But the project manager also keeps randomly pulling my resources so they can do things like have a day off because they’re exhausted from working a few hours of overtime. Which I might feel bad about if they were working even half the hours they said they were working.
And if one more person here says “relax and enjoy life” I will scream.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
I told you it would take your eye out
Since a few of you have expressed interest in seeing my room service tray art...tonight's theme is "I told you it would take your eye out".
ITIL and dinosaurs
I scheduled to take my ITIL exam at an exam center here. I scheduled if for today even though I had a ton of other stuff to do this week and had only Thursday night and Friday to study (I logged 103 work hours this week).
Because I was afraid of being late, and wasn't sure where exactly the test center was (no street addresses here), and couldn't read the crap map on the web site, I called the test center and asked for the name of a close cross street (the testing center is on Zayed the 1st street, which is a long street). The moron I talked to gave me two names, but it was actually two different names for Zayed the 1st street, rather than the cross street. I had my driver talk to the idiot after I called him for the third time, and he found it for me. I told the driver I was nervous because I was taking an exam, and he shook his head and said "why would you take an exam with those guys who don't know where their building is?"
Point taken. And, for the record, the testing center is at a T, and rather than giving the driver the name of the street that Ts into their building, or the name of the huge BMW office across the street from the testing center, the moron at the test center told my driver the center was near a street 2 blocks away.
I got there right on time and went to sign in for the test. I waited for 10 minutes while a bunch of scurrying was going on behind the counter. Then a guy came up to me and said "Oh, your test was canceled. We are doing maintenance on the system today. I called your mobile to tell you but you did not answer." I was like "What do you mean you're doing maintenance when you've already charged me for the exam?" and they said "There were only 6 people doing exams today so we canceled them all, except for you who did not answer the phone."
I've been a little stressed out lately. And I was furious that after wasting my entire Friday studying I would not be able to take my exam. Because the rest of next week is so busy for me, it would be a full week before I could take the exam if I didn't take it today. And having that hanging over my head was not going to work.
I'll spare the gory details of what happened next. Suffice it to say, I got them to load up a computer so I could take the exam (after having to wait almost 45 minutes). Because the normal testing area was not available, I got stuck in this weird little room. It looked like a place where they give English exams or something. I was seated at a computer with a poster covered with dinosaurs on the wall behind. I had to sneak take this picture because I wasn't supposed to have my blackberry in the test area. The whole time I was taking my test I kept looking up at that t rex thinking "If I fail this thing because of that dinosaur poster I am going to be even more pissed than I already am".
The exam is supposed to take 1 hour. I did it in 10 minutes. The guy who was in the room watching to make sure I didn't cheat off of, I don't know, since I was the only one in there, the dinosaurs I guess, insisted that I couldn't possibly be done with the exam. He made me sit for another 10 minutes. I stared at the dinosaurs. Then, idiot me, I decided to review my answers. I changed two questions from the right answer to the wrong answer.
How do I know that? Because after the 10 minutes were up I submitted my answers. A half hour went by while the guy tried to figure out how to print my test results. When he was finally able to do that, drama building because it had now been 1/2 hour and I didn't know my score, he walked in and said "You got a 95%!" meaning I passed the exam. He then showed me how I had changed two answers and he said "why did you do that?" I felt like saying "because you made me sit here for 10 minutes with nothing to do but look at that scary dinosaur", but I didn't.
The guy at the front counter that I had yelled at until he set up the test for me shook his hand and said "I did not know a woman could get such a grade on a test". It was not the first time in the hour that had passed that I wanted to punch him. But I didn't.
if you want them to care about zombies, throw in George Clooney
On Thursday, the last day of the class I was teaching, my customer wanted to work through a "real world" scenario to make sure they understood everything they learned in the class, since they'll have to do it in real life.Normally I use a missile example when I do a workshop. A missile has been fired at a friendly ship, and the missile on the friendly ship has to intercept and destroy it before it hits. However, given the current climate here, where the locals aren't feeling too friendly towards the US because of all of the stuff going on, especially with Israel (full disclosure - I'm on their side), I decided it was best to make up a scenario.
Also, the scenario had to be entertaining. These guys lose focus quicker than a 4 year old with ADD. So I came up with this: we were from a country called Kanukistan, going to an island called Arlandia that, because of a scientist's experiment gone wrong, had recently been taken over by zombies. Worse, a few of the zombies stole a navy boat that had a missile. We had to destroy the zombies to get to the island and save the scientist.
While a few of the officers seemed vaguely interested in my scenario, one of them said "who cares about the scientist? why should we rescue him?" Everyone in the class agreed. Granted, this was after 4 days of intense 10 hour training days. The last day is always the worst because everyone is tired.
"Well," I said. "I forgot to mention something. George Clooney is on the island. He went there on vacation." The officers were now paying attention again. "If we don't finish this exercise by 2:30, he's going to be turned into a zombie." I drew this picture, prompting one of my students to comment "it's a good thing you decided to be an engineer and not an artist".
That, for some reason, was a good reason to work on the project. For the rest of the day, until 430 actually, we worked on the exercise. Which was kind of funny because people were saying things like "would the zombies have a missile with more capabilities than ours?" At one point the photog who took our pictures came in to thank us again (and to buy us lunch again). He asked what exactly we were doing since we were talking about missiles and zombies and had the above picture taped in a prominent place on the wall over some marketing poster.
One of the officers explained we had to save George Clooney by 2:30 otherwise he would turn into a zombie and that some zombies had commandeered a ship with a missile that they were going to fire at us. The photog looked at me and said "Um, what class is this that you're teaching?"
Here's what the picture looked like after we modeled it. Notice the blood coming out of the zombies' mouths. That was added by one of the officers. I am saddened to report that we didn't say George Clooney by 230, but the exercise finally finished up by 430 and I was able to meet my customer for happy hour.
And I'm going to bet that none of those officers will forget taking a class with me.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
say cheese
Well, I just finished recording this presentation I had to do for DoDAF 2.0, and now all I have to do by saturday is study for and take my ITIL exam (Saturday morning is D day) and finish up some software testing. Hopefully I won't be working until 10 o'clock at night every night in July.
So a weird thing happened to me today. I'm teaching a class at my company's site (while still trying to do 8 hours of work on my other project and manage it). The class is all emirates. The class is going surprisingly well considering all the cultural issues. They are even laughing at my jokes and trying to use some slang. Today one of my students told me that if I cheered him up he would eat one more slice of pizza (we had pizza delivered for lunch because if I let them go on breaks they don't always come back). I realized after a few minutes he meant for me to cheer him on. I had initially thought he was depressed and couldn't eat.
Anyway, I was in the middle of a heated discussion about meta models when this weird looking white guy came into my room with a camera and asked if he could take my picture. I thought it was a joke, but decided to play along, so I said "sure you can take my picture". Then he asked the emiratis if it was okay (they don't like to be photographed). They agreed but said he had to shoot the picture from the back so no one could see their faces. And then they all turned around to look at me and started making faces at me.
The photog said "do something dramatic" so I pretended that the white board easel was falling on me. He said "no, do something dramatic as you're teaching". It turns out he was hired to take pictures of the training facility for some brochure and picked me over the other instructor, who looks like a troll, to be the "action" picture.
I stood there, not sure what to do, and trying to to look at my students who were still making faces at me. The photog said "just start teaching again and I'll take some shots when you don't expect it". Great. There will probably be a picture of me doing something retarded on a brochure that's being distributed throughout the middle east.
So I started teaching again and, as he looked at my profile, the photog suddenly said "hey, do you want to comb your hair before I take this?" Everyone started laughing because we had 90% humidity today, and it was insanely hot, so my hair looks like I've been living in the forest for the past 5 years. It was curling and sticking straight out from my head. I was really embarrassed but also kind of pissed so I said "I'm not going to comb my hair for your picture. Why don't you pretend to be the instructor and I'll take the picture?"
I started trying to teach again but my students decided that this would be a perfect time to ask me a bunch of embarrassing questions. One asked "if you meet a nice guy, do you talk about meta models, because that's not sexy?" Another said "didn't you wear that shirt yesterday?" (in fact I had, I've been so busy I've had no time to drop off or pick up laundry). Then another said "how come your hair is so fat?" which made me laugh, and the stupid photog took the picture. It will be hideous.
Because we cooperated the photog offered to buy us lunch tomorrow. He asked what we wanted. My favorite student, M, said "lobsters", but he said it like he was requesting a sandwich. The photog said "hm, um, I was thinking more like pizza". A round of boos from the class. So the photog said "well what did you have for lunch today?" and M said "lobsters". Everyone started saying ridiculous things like they wanted food from this expensive 5 star restaurant.
God only knows what we'll end up with.
As the photog was exiting my class I said "wait, don't leave! they're picking on you now instead of me!" and he said "I'm sure you can handle yourself around these guys". Which might have appeared to be the truth from the back of the room, but seemed less apparent from the front of the room.
So a weird thing happened to me today. I'm teaching a class at my company's site (while still trying to do 8 hours of work on my other project and manage it). The class is all emirates. The class is going surprisingly well considering all the cultural issues. They are even laughing at my jokes and trying to use some slang. Today one of my students told me that if I cheered him up he would eat one more slice of pizza (we had pizza delivered for lunch because if I let them go on breaks they don't always come back). I realized after a few minutes he meant for me to cheer him on. I had initially thought he was depressed and couldn't eat.
Anyway, I was in the middle of a heated discussion about meta models when this weird looking white guy came into my room with a camera and asked if he could take my picture. I thought it was a joke, but decided to play along, so I said "sure you can take my picture". Then he asked the emiratis if it was okay (they don't like to be photographed). They agreed but said he had to shoot the picture from the back so no one could see their faces. And then they all turned around to look at me and started making faces at me.
The photog said "do something dramatic" so I pretended that the white board easel was falling on me. He said "no, do something dramatic as you're teaching". It turns out he was hired to take pictures of the training facility for some brochure and picked me over the other instructor, who looks like a troll, to be the "action" picture.
I stood there, not sure what to do, and trying to to look at my students who were still making faces at me. The photog said "just start teaching again and I'll take some shots when you don't expect it". Great. There will probably be a picture of me doing something retarded on a brochure that's being distributed throughout the middle east.
So I started teaching again and, as he looked at my profile, the photog suddenly said "hey, do you want to comb your hair before I take this?" Everyone started laughing because we had 90% humidity today, and it was insanely hot, so my hair looks like I've been living in the forest for the past 5 years. It was curling and sticking straight out from my head. I was really embarrassed but also kind of pissed so I said "I'm not going to comb my hair for your picture. Why don't you pretend to be the instructor and I'll take the picture?"
I started trying to teach again but my students decided that this would be a perfect time to ask me a bunch of embarrassing questions. One asked "if you meet a nice guy, do you talk about meta models, because that's not sexy?" Another said "didn't you wear that shirt yesterday?" (in fact I had, I've been so busy I've had no time to drop off or pick up laundry). Then another said "how come your hair is so fat?" which made me laugh, and the stupid photog took the picture. It will be hideous.
Because we cooperated the photog offered to buy us lunch tomorrow. He asked what we wanted. My favorite student, M, said "lobsters", but he said it like he was requesting a sandwich. The photog said "hm, um, I was thinking more like pizza". A round of boos from the class. So the photog said "well what did you have for lunch today?" and M said "lobsters". Everyone started saying ridiculous things like they wanted food from this expensive 5 star restaurant.
God only knows what we'll end up with.
As the photog was exiting my class I said "wait, don't leave! they're picking on you now instead of me!" and he said "I'm sure you can handle yourself around these guys". Which might have appeared to be the truth from the back of the room, but seemed less apparent from the front of the room.
Friday, June 18, 2010
and it's only june
This was taken in the Texas Kid's car when he dropped me off at the intercon. That's celsius. For those of you (like me) who are metrically challenged, that's 133.7 degrees F. And this was taken at 5 pm this evening, when it's "cooling off".
I'm not exaggerating. It's hot here.
I'm not exaggerating. It's hot here.
wonder if the taliban will try to recruit me
I just got back from shooting at the officer's club.
I almost didn't make it there. I got into a taxi at the intercon, and the driver drove aimlessly for 10 minutes before saying "I don't know where is this officer's club. You have a map?" I was like "you're the driver, don't YOU have a map?" He pulled out a cartoon map they hand out in the tourist club area. The officer's club is not in Abu Dhabi so it obviously wasn't on the map.
"You get out of my cab now" he said. I was like "WHAT?" It was unbelievably hot outside, and I needed to get to the officer's club in 20 minutes or I would be late. He said "my friend, he will come pick you".
So I sat on the side of the road fuming for 5 minutes and then the friend showed up. He took me to the officer's club hotel and said the shooting range was there. It wasn't. I started the kilometer slog in the hot sun to the range and then luckily ran into one of my co-workers, who gave me a lift.
The COO of the company I'm consulting for was there. He sat next to me in this theater style area (imagine a movie theater with only 30 seats, 10 in each tier) and we chatted for a half hour while we waited for our range time (the theater area is about 5 feet away from bullet proof glass that looks onto the range so you can watch people shoot). He's a super nice Jordanian guy who studied in the US, and he's always coming out with these crazy expressions. Today he said "holy toledo!" when he looked at my target, because I got a bull's eye (I admit that I had a lot of bad shots too). It always makes me laugh when he says stuff like that, and I think he does it on purpose.
The COO had never shot before so he decided we would go together. There are 6 lanes at the range, but two were taken up by the sheik's kids, so only two of us were allowed to go in at a time (even though we had the range reserved, the sheik takes priority), with two empty stalls between us and the kids. A guy stood right behind me at all times to make sure I couldn't face any direction except forward with my gun. Then, when I was done shooting, he told me to put my hands up and back away from the gun before he reloaded my clip.
Then they left and some seriously terrorist looking guys came in. I don't know what the guy next to me was doing, but his casings kept flying over the divider into my stall. For those of you who have never shot before, the casing is HOT. My work colleagues were watching this and laughing as I would flinch every time a casing hit me on the head or shoulder. Then two of the guys that work for me that came decided it would be fun to sing "it's raining bullets" to the tune of "it's raining men", with the Texas Kid doing this little dance of me jumping around when a casing hit me. Ha ha ha.
The guy who manages the range is Paki, retired army, and not only did he find pink ear protectors for me, but he also let me load my own gun after I finished my first two clips and he let me shoot a fourth clip for free. As they say, you get what you pay for.
He thought he could instruct me to be a better shot. He stood behind me, holding the gun, and putting his finger over my finger to show me how to squeeze the trigger "more slow" as he kept saying. The problem was he was 3 inches shorter than me and I have gorilla arms. So I had to kind of fold up my arms so he could reach the trigger. Out of 15 bullets only 4 hit the target at all, and only two were in the black. Everyone from my project was watching behind me in the theater and laughing. When I was finished I held my target up to the bullet proof glass so everyone could see how bad it was.
I would like to take this opportunity to mention that the Texas Kid is a damn good shot. He wanted a casing so I took off my sandals and picked one up with my toes. After I gave it to him I said "I picked that up with my foot" and he said "you are so disgusting". Then he went to the bathroom and washed his hands and the casing.
While driving home Texas Kid was still laughing about the Paki giving me a "shooting lesson". I was like dude, you're people are retarded and he said that the guy just really wanted to touch my hands because it's a big deal for a man to touch a woman's hands.
Which may or may not be true. It's the middle east, so it's hard to tell what's real and what isn't.
I almost didn't make it there. I got into a taxi at the intercon, and the driver drove aimlessly for 10 minutes before saying "I don't know where is this officer's club. You have a map?" I was like "you're the driver, don't YOU have a map?" He pulled out a cartoon map they hand out in the tourist club area. The officer's club is not in Abu Dhabi so it obviously wasn't on the map.
"You get out of my cab now" he said. I was like "WHAT?" It was unbelievably hot outside, and I needed to get to the officer's club in 20 minutes or I would be late. He said "my friend, he will come pick you".
So I sat on the side of the road fuming for 5 minutes and then the friend showed up. He took me to the officer's club hotel and said the shooting range was there. It wasn't. I started the kilometer slog in the hot sun to the range and then luckily ran into one of my co-workers, who gave me a lift.
The COO of the company I'm consulting for was there. He sat next to me in this theater style area (imagine a movie theater with only 30 seats, 10 in each tier) and we chatted for a half hour while we waited for our range time (the theater area is about 5 feet away from bullet proof glass that looks onto the range so you can watch people shoot). He's a super nice Jordanian guy who studied in the US, and he's always coming out with these crazy expressions. Today he said "holy toledo!" when he looked at my target, because I got a bull's eye (I admit that I had a lot of bad shots too). It always makes me laugh when he says stuff like that, and I think he does it on purpose.
The COO had never shot before so he decided we would go together. There are 6 lanes at the range, but two were taken up by the sheik's kids, so only two of us were allowed to go in at a time (even though we had the range reserved, the sheik takes priority), with two empty stalls between us and the kids. A guy stood right behind me at all times to make sure I couldn't face any direction except forward with my gun. Then, when I was done shooting, he told me to put my hands up and back away from the gun before he reloaded my clip.
Then they left and some seriously terrorist looking guys came in. I don't know what the guy next to me was doing, but his casings kept flying over the divider into my stall. For those of you who have never shot before, the casing is HOT. My work colleagues were watching this and laughing as I would flinch every time a casing hit me on the head or shoulder. Then two of the guys that work for me that came decided it would be fun to sing "it's raining bullets" to the tune of "it's raining men", with the Texas Kid doing this little dance of me jumping around when a casing hit me. Ha ha ha.
The guy who manages the range is Paki, retired army, and not only did he find pink ear protectors for me, but he also let me load my own gun after I finished my first two clips and he let me shoot a fourth clip for free. As they say, you get what you pay for.
He thought he could instruct me to be a better shot. He stood behind me, holding the gun, and putting his finger over my finger to show me how to squeeze the trigger "more slow" as he kept saying. The problem was he was 3 inches shorter than me and I have gorilla arms. So I had to kind of fold up my arms so he could reach the trigger. Out of 15 bullets only 4 hit the target at all, and only two were in the black. Everyone from my project was watching behind me in the theater and laughing. When I was finished I held my target up to the bullet proof glass so everyone could see how bad it was.
I would like to take this opportunity to mention that the Texas Kid is a damn good shot. He wanted a casing so I took off my sandals and picked one up with my toes. After I gave it to him I said "I picked that up with my foot" and he said "you are so disgusting". Then he went to the bathroom and washed his hands and the casing.
While driving home Texas Kid was still laughing about the Paki giving me a "shooting lesson". I was like dude, you're people are retarded and he said that the guy just really wanted to touch my hands because it's a big deal for a man to touch a woman's hands.
Which may or may not be true. It's the middle east, so it's hard to tell what's real and what isn't.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
some pictures
Everything is under construction in this country, even the exit ramp out of the Intercon. It makes life interesting.
This is the "sand bridge", built to the sand bar you see in front of the beach. Why did they build this sand bridge and fake sand island? So they could build stuff on it. What, I don't know. It's spoiled the beach and the view. Normally the sand island has tents set up on it for the construction workers doing what ever it is they are doing with the fake island.
And that's how the water gets so hot. The sand from the fake sand island blow into our little water area too, which is annoying.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
gun club
Apropos of nothing I could think of, one of the guys I work for today, in the middle of a meeting, asked me "Have you ever shot anyone?"
"Not that I know of" I responded jauntily. Too bad I didn't read my horoscope today before I answered. It was "unless you're with like-minded people, your dry wit will be misinterpreted". Seriously!
There was dead silence around the table, so I clarified that I was just joking.
For some reason everyone is getting nervous about going shooting with me on Friday. The guy who arranged the trip (the same one who asked if I had ever shot someone) has arranged for everyone to have private instructors. The club where we're going has seats above the range so people can watch while you're shooting. I've been forbidden to watch anyone until they fire "practice rounds". I was also told that the targets would not be moved past a certain distance (the distance is so close a blind person could hit it).
Funny that these guys thought they were going to intimidate me by taking me to a gun club, and they're all officers or retired officers, and now they are the ones intimidated. It's like when I invited them to go jet skiing (which we were supposed to do tomorrow). They were all enthusiastic but eventually every one of them came up with an excuse of why they couldn't go. I asked one of the Lebanese guys I work with if they were mad at me and he was like "dude, none of them know how to swim". Oh. Duh. But, wait a minute. They live on an ISLAND. I also pointed out we have to wear those floaty vests. He said "that's fine, until a shark eats you".
If there are any sharks in the water, they must be half cooked by now. It was 129 degrees today. The water temperature logged in at 118 degrees. Last night I walked a mile and a half to get my laundry, at 10 pm. It felt like someone was following behind me with a hair dryer, blasting me with hot air, assuming also that the hair dryer was full of sand (we're still in sand storm season). When I got home I had sand in my ears. Gross.
"Not that I know of" I responded jauntily. Too bad I didn't read my horoscope today before I answered. It was "unless you're with like-minded people, your dry wit will be misinterpreted". Seriously!
There was dead silence around the table, so I clarified that I was just joking.
For some reason everyone is getting nervous about going shooting with me on Friday. The guy who arranged the trip (the same one who asked if I had ever shot someone) has arranged for everyone to have private instructors. The club where we're going has seats above the range so people can watch while you're shooting. I've been forbidden to watch anyone until they fire "practice rounds". I was also told that the targets would not be moved past a certain distance (the distance is so close a blind person could hit it).
Funny that these guys thought they were going to intimidate me by taking me to a gun club, and they're all officers or retired officers, and now they are the ones intimidated. It's like when I invited them to go jet skiing (which we were supposed to do tomorrow). They were all enthusiastic but eventually every one of them came up with an excuse of why they couldn't go. I asked one of the Lebanese guys I work with if they were mad at me and he was like "dude, none of them know how to swim". Oh. Duh. But, wait a minute. They live on an ISLAND. I also pointed out we have to wear those floaty vests. He said "that's fine, until a shark eats you".
If there are any sharks in the water, they must be half cooked by now. It was 129 degrees today. The water temperature logged in at 118 degrees. Last night I walked a mile and a half to get my laundry, at 10 pm. It felt like someone was following behind me with a hair dryer, blasting me with hot air, assuming also that the hair dryer was full of sand (we're still in sand storm season). When I got home I had sand in my ears. Gross.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
colloquial
I've been teaching my customer some colloquial expressions. Here's a story to illustrate. No, this really didn't happen to me today. Really. I mean, why wouldn't this story be made up because it couldn't happen on a real project...
The first expression is "thrown under the bus". For example, if my customer is having difficulties with someone else in his organization who is blocking our project, and tells me on Thursday he's going to have the guy fired, and I think he in the end agrees with me to just let things work their course, and then he calls the CEO on Friday and says "this guy should be fired and Franki agreed with me", I've been thrown under the bus.
The second expression is "blow back". The CEO calls a meeting with my customer and the offending party and says one will be fired. The offending party comes to me and says "why did you say we have trouble working together?" I try to explain that I never said that, with my customer present to verify. For the record, the offending party is VERY hard to work with, going so far as to suggest my company is at fault for a quirk of the XML standard and that I should find a way to fix it. Right. After the offending party leaves I look at my customer who is saying "oh, sorry, I didn't realize what I said would effect you". I ask why he would make something up at my expense and he said that my opinion has weight with the CEO. I point out to him that he didn't consider blow back.
The third expression is "molly coddle". So I have to spend the rest of my day with the offending party to assure him that I think he's just great. And people wonder why I have an ulcer. I'll be spending the rest of my evening doing my real work that I couldn't get done because of this unscheduled babysitting gig. When my customer asks why I was spending so much time with the offending party I pointed out that, because my customer is a knucklehead, I now have to molly coddle the offending party.
The fourth expression is "a rose between two thorns". The CEO called me into his office this afternoon and apologized for getting me caught in the middle of the political war between the offending party and my customer. I explained to him that I was a rose between two thorns (though, I am originally the rose between two different thorns, if you remember Mr. Krol). He then said "and I am the shield for the rose". Uh huh. He also said the offending party might indeed be fired but he's not sure. Meaning, I have to keep up the molly coddling even though at the end of the day it will all be for naught.
The fifth expression, which I haven't taught my customer yet, is cluster fuck.
Ech. This is why I have an ulcer.
Now, I'm off to work on my ITIL study guide. I am probably going to sit for the exam on Thursday because, yeah, I have nothing better to do.
The first expression is "thrown under the bus". For example, if my customer is having difficulties with someone else in his organization who is blocking our project, and tells me on Thursday he's going to have the guy fired, and I think he in the end agrees with me to just let things work their course, and then he calls the CEO on Friday and says "this guy should be fired and Franki agreed with me", I've been thrown under the bus.
The second expression is "blow back". The CEO calls a meeting with my customer and the offending party and says one will be fired. The offending party comes to me and says "why did you say we have trouble working together?" I try to explain that I never said that, with my customer present to verify. For the record, the offending party is VERY hard to work with, going so far as to suggest my company is at fault for a quirk of the XML standard and that I should find a way to fix it. Right. After the offending party leaves I look at my customer who is saying "oh, sorry, I didn't realize what I said would effect you". I ask why he would make something up at my expense and he said that my opinion has weight with the CEO. I point out to him that he didn't consider blow back.
The third expression is "molly coddle". So I have to spend the rest of my day with the offending party to assure him that I think he's just great. And people wonder why I have an ulcer. I'll be spending the rest of my evening doing my real work that I couldn't get done because of this unscheduled babysitting gig. When my customer asks why I was spending so much time with the offending party I pointed out that, because my customer is a knucklehead, I now have to molly coddle the offending party.
The fourth expression is "a rose between two thorns". The CEO called me into his office this afternoon and apologized for getting me caught in the middle of the political war between the offending party and my customer. I explained to him that I was a rose between two thorns (though, I am originally the rose between two different thorns, if you remember Mr. Krol). He then said "and I am the shield for the rose". Uh huh. He also said the offending party might indeed be fired but he's not sure. Meaning, I have to keep up the molly coddling even though at the end of the day it will all be for naught.
The fifth expression, which I haven't taught my customer yet, is cluster fuck.
Ech. This is why I have an ulcer.
Now, I'm off to work on my ITIL study guide. I am probably going to sit for the exam on Thursday because, yeah, I have nothing better to do.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
deliver me from humidity
June is now in full swing. It's got to be the most disgusting weather on the planet. And, my air conditioning isn't working.
It's about 80 degrees in my room. All of the windows of the hotel are covered in fog because it's so hot outside. The place looks like a haunted house.
I woke up this morning around 630 and couldn't sleep because of the heat. I poked my head out into the corridor around 730 to get my newspaper. Dasan was standing outside my door. "I clean your room?" he asked hopefully. "Dude, I'm not going to the beach until 10," I responded. It's my first morning to relax in weeks. Dasan fiddled with his cart. I almost felt bad for not leaving.
He's recently presented me with a new card, almost twice the size of the one he initially gave me. I hope the new card is in response to all the letters I've written about what a good job he does. He turns the right side of my bed down. He always leaves me two chocolates instead of one. And he understands my organizational system and never rearranges any of my belongings into an unacceptable configuration.
At 10 am I head down to the beach, even though it's ridiculously hot and humid. Sitting in the shade, trying to read the newspaper, is almost unbearable. The paper melts into the sand like a piece of cheese. No breeze any more to stir the pages. The paper gets so soggy the pages stick together and the ink gets all over everything. I give up and throw it away. I pull out my ITIL books and start highlighting them so I can create a study document. My highlighter is liquefied and leaks all over everything.
I decide to go for a swim. Clumps of sand and salt float on top of the water like kitty litter. It's disgusting, like a huge ship carrying styrofoam has exploded off the beach. The water is around 95 degrees. Two lebanese girls get into a screaming match with a local. They say "Just because you're from here you think you have the right to talk to me?" He responds "Call the police, they will arrest you for being drunk" (the girls are standing in waist deep water with some kind of tropical drinks).
I check out my damsels. There are even more of them today. I see 7, including one big one I've never seen before. I also discover on the wall that separates my beach from the boat inlet, 2 crabs. They climb up the wall, and when the sun hits them they scurry back down the wall into the water.
I go back to the shade and try to read, but it's too hot. To put things in perspective, I've twice hiked across the grand canyon in 128 degree heat with my dad, carrying about 40 lbs of water. This is worse, and I'm doing nothing but sitting in the shade.
I go back to my room and find 3 filipino boys cleaning it. None are over 5'4" or 90 lbs. I slice up a pink lady and offer it to them, as well as some cold water from my refrigerator. My room feels hotter than 80 degrees even though that's what the thermostat says. Two of them sit on my bed and talk. It sounds like they are saying "la de la la la la, la LA LA de la la". I sit at my computer and try to work on my ITIL guide.
One kid gets about 5 towels and tries to bring them in my room. I'm like "Stop! I only need one towel!" He puts the towels on my bed, goes back to his cart, and bring two more in. Great. Eight towels. I could have a beach party.
Dasan shows up and yells at the guys sitting on my bed. I think. He says "la la LALALA de la la!" One leaves and the other gets the vacuum. He vacuums the inside of my closet, and then my running shoes. He vacuums so close to me (I'm sitting at my desk, working on my laptop) that I'm half tempted to pretend I'm being sucked into the vacuum. Dasan picks up my ITIL books I brought to the beach and holds them while the kid vacuums the sand off of them.
I finish my study guide and call my parents in the lobby, since my phone doesn't work well in my room. I go outside and immediately feel like someone has wrapped me in a wet towel and put me in the microwave. You can see when someone has been outside. They look like they've been through a rain storm because hair, clothes, and skin are all oozing and clammy, like we're all in some kind of horror movie in the first stages of fever that will eventually lead to us all becoming flesh eating zombies.
At 7 PM I go downstairs and attempt to walk to a sandwich shop. It's too hot. I feel like I'm going to pass out. So instead I order room service.
I like to make my tray into a small piece of artwork before I put it outside my door with a theme reflecting my feelings about the dinner I've just eaten. Tonight's theme was "your pita bread sucks". Usually, I like pita bread. But here, seriously, it tastes like pita bread that's been frozen in the refrigerator for 6 months and then reheated for too long in a microwave.
I hid everything except the bread basket in the bottom of the tray. Then I made some flower petals out of the pita bread, and put the packets of butter at the center. They really did look like flowers. Then I turned the bread basket upside down and used the little mustard and mayonnaise jars as eyes on top of the basket. I took a pepper strand left over from my salad and used that as a frowny mouth on the basket. I fashioned my napkin into an arrow of sorts, pointing at the pita flowers.
I don't know if they'll get it. They'll probably think I've lost my mind due to the heat and humidity.
They may be right.
It's about 80 degrees in my room. All of the windows of the hotel are covered in fog because it's so hot outside. The place looks like a haunted house.
I woke up this morning around 630 and couldn't sleep because of the heat. I poked my head out into the corridor around 730 to get my newspaper. Dasan was standing outside my door. "I clean your room?" he asked hopefully. "Dude, I'm not going to the beach until 10," I responded. It's my first morning to relax in weeks. Dasan fiddled with his cart. I almost felt bad for not leaving.
He's recently presented me with a new card, almost twice the size of the one he initially gave me. I hope the new card is in response to all the letters I've written about what a good job he does. He turns the right side of my bed down. He always leaves me two chocolates instead of one. And he understands my organizational system and never rearranges any of my belongings into an unacceptable configuration.
At 10 am I head down to the beach, even though it's ridiculously hot and humid. Sitting in the shade, trying to read the newspaper, is almost unbearable. The paper melts into the sand like a piece of cheese. No breeze any more to stir the pages. The paper gets so soggy the pages stick together and the ink gets all over everything. I give up and throw it away. I pull out my ITIL books and start highlighting them so I can create a study document. My highlighter is liquefied and leaks all over everything.
I decide to go for a swim. Clumps of sand and salt float on top of the water like kitty litter. It's disgusting, like a huge ship carrying styrofoam has exploded off the beach. The water is around 95 degrees. Two lebanese girls get into a screaming match with a local. They say "Just because you're from here you think you have the right to talk to me?" He responds "Call the police, they will arrest you for being drunk" (the girls are standing in waist deep water with some kind of tropical drinks).
I check out my damsels. There are even more of them today. I see 7, including one big one I've never seen before. I also discover on the wall that separates my beach from the boat inlet, 2 crabs. They climb up the wall, and when the sun hits them they scurry back down the wall into the water.
I go back to the shade and try to read, but it's too hot. To put things in perspective, I've twice hiked across the grand canyon in 128 degree heat with my dad, carrying about 40 lbs of water. This is worse, and I'm doing nothing but sitting in the shade.
I go back to my room and find 3 filipino boys cleaning it. None are over 5'4" or 90 lbs. I slice up a pink lady and offer it to them, as well as some cold water from my refrigerator. My room feels hotter than 80 degrees even though that's what the thermostat says. Two of them sit on my bed and talk. It sounds like they are saying "la de la la la la, la LA LA de la la". I sit at my computer and try to work on my ITIL guide.
One kid gets about 5 towels and tries to bring them in my room. I'm like "Stop! I only need one towel!" He puts the towels on my bed, goes back to his cart, and bring two more in. Great. Eight towels. I could have a beach party.
Dasan shows up and yells at the guys sitting on my bed. I think. He says "la la LALALA de la la!" One leaves and the other gets the vacuum. He vacuums the inside of my closet, and then my running shoes. He vacuums so close to me (I'm sitting at my desk, working on my laptop) that I'm half tempted to pretend I'm being sucked into the vacuum. Dasan picks up my ITIL books I brought to the beach and holds them while the kid vacuums the sand off of them.
I finish my study guide and call my parents in the lobby, since my phone doesn't work well in my room. I go outside and immediately feel like someone has wrapped me in a wet towel and put me in the microwave. You can see when someone has been outside. They look like they've been through a rain storm because hair, clothes, and skin are all oozing and clammy, like we're all in some kind of horror movie in the first stages of fever that will eventually lead to us all becoming flesh eating zombies.
At 7 PM I go downstairs and attempt to walk to a sandwich shop. It's too hot. I feel like I'm going to pass out. So instead I order room service.
I like to make my tray into a small piece of artwork before I put it outside my door with a theme reflecting my feelings about the dinner I've just eaten. Tonight's theme was "your pita bread sucks". Usually, I like pita bread. But here, seriously, it tastes like pita bread that's been frozen in the refrigerator for 6 months and then reheated for too long in a microwave.
I hid everything except the bread basket in the bottom of the tray. Then I made some flower petals out of the pita bread, and put the packets of butter at the center. They really did look like flowers. Then I turned the bread basket upside down and used the little mustard and mayonnaise jars as eyes on top of the basket. I took a pepper strand left over from my salad and used that as a frowny mouth on the basket. I fashioned my napkin into an arrow of sorts, pointing at the pita flowers.
I don't know if they'll get it. They'll probably think I've lost my mind due to the heat and humidity.
They may be right.
Friday, June 11, 2010
wasta
Yesterday I didn't have ITIL training, but I had a project managers' meeting with my customer. The meeting consisted of sitting around the brau haus, a german restaurant in the Beach Rotana, and having a drink and getting to know the other PMs. My customer asked me to do the meeting because he's hoping other projects will start to follow the same plan and schedule I've set up for my project.
One thing people like to do here is show you how important they are. There's a term "wasta" (pronouced "wha-sta) that means you know someone so important you could run naked through the streets screaming and not get arrested. So, for example, I mentioned to a canadian that I had briefed the general he works for. The canadian immediately called the general up and had a weird conversation with him that involved a bunch of veiled references to them apparently getting up to no good a few weekends ago when their wives were both out of town. After the canadian called his general, all the other PMs had to call their generals. I just sat there smoking cigarettes because I hadn't even brought a phone.
Because he's very competitive, my customer not only called his general, but invited him for belly dancing. It turns out I've never met his general, but his general had heard about me from work I'd done out here previously. My heart sank when my customer told me that. I knew what was coming.
I was invited to the belly dancing dinner night. Ech. The last thing I want to do in my "free" time. On top of my regular job I'm writing a white paper, preparing a web cast, and alpha testing some software. I literally do not leave my computer except to go to the gym or to get food. My disinterest must have been very apparent, even though it was bad for me to not immediately agree to go since I had already told my customer I wouldn't drink a glass of cherry schnapps with him.
"But exciting things will happen at the dinner!" my customer says. Yeah, I bet, I was thinking to myself. Then he told me a story about how he had taken a bunch of VIPs out one night for belly dancing. They weren't drinking, but the sheesha was consumed with abandon. The belly dancers aren't exactly small people, but some of the VIPs were. One of the dancers got a little too close to the head VIP, who was apparently nodding off from too much sheesha. The dancer bumped him with her hip and knocked him clean out of his chair. The story recounted here is not that funny but was very funny when it was told last night.
Anyway, I'll see how shooting with the officers goes next week, and then decide if I even want to think about a belly dancing dinner. Tourists go so it's not like it's an abnormal thing to do.
I'd just rather stay home and do something else.
One thing people like to do here is show you how important they are. There's a term "wasta" (pronouced "wha-sta) that means you know someone so important you could run naked through the streets screaming and not get arrested. So, for example, I mentioned to a canadian that I had briefed the general he works for. The canadian immediately called the general up and had a weird conversation with him that involved a bunch of veiled references to them apparently getting up to no good a few weekends ago when their wives were both out of town. After the canadian called his general, all the other PMs had to call their generals. I just sat there smoking cigarettes because I hadn't even brought a phone.
Because he's very competitive, my customer not only called his general, but invited him for belly dancing. It turns out I've never met his general, but his general had heard about me from work I'd done out here previously. My heart sank when my customer told me that. I knew what was coming.
I was invited to the belly dancing dinner night. Ech. The last thing I want to do in my "free" time. On top of my regular job I'm writing a white paper, preparing a web cast, and alpha testing some software. I literally do not leave my computer except to go to the gym or to get food. My disinterest must have been very apparent, even though it was bad for me to not immediately agree to go since I had already told my customer I wouldn't drink a glass of cherry schnapps with him.
"But exciting things will happen at the dinner!" my customer says. Yeah, I bet, I was thinking to myself. Then he told me a story about how he had taken a bunch of VIPs out one night for belly dancing. They weren't drinking, but the sheesha was consumed with abandon. The belly dancers aren't exactly small people, but some of the VIPs were. One of the dancers got a little too close to the head VIP, who was apparently nodding off from too much sheesha. The dancer bumped him with her hip and knocked him clean out of his chair. The story recounted here is not that funny but was very funny when it was told last night.
Anyway, I'll see how shooting with the officers goes next week, and then decide if I even want to think about a belly dancing dinner. Tourists go so it's not like it's an abnormal thing to do.
I'd just rather stay home and do something else.
idle training
The reason I haven't written anything this week is I've been taking a 2 hour class every day after work. It's so I can get ITIL certified. The class costs about $1200 in the US, but my customer is letting me take it with them for free.
Well, you get what you pay for. Here's how the evening typically goes. The class is supposed to start at 5:15, meaning I should be in a taxi, on my way home, by 7:15.
But the conference room where the training is, which can barely fit all of us students, is never open at 5:15. So we wait. I normally put my laptop on the copier outside the conference room and try to weed through my emails. Even though I don't have internet connection at the training site I can at least get the mails ready to send when I get back to my hotel.
By 5:45 the room is usually free. Then hurdle #2. Out here time is more of a suggestion than a reality. Half the students still will not be there even though training is now starting 30 minutes later than planned. We wait another 15 minutes for them to show up.
By 6 the class starts. But then Ahmed, the tea boy, sometimes forgets to order our dinner. The class is stopped while he is tracked down and told to get us food. The students then protest they can't look at one more training slide until they are fed.
By 7:30 I've already completed my exam. I've started passing the answers sneakily around the class to speed up the exam review. One student in particular will take 5 minutes to guess the answer to his question. He always seems to pick the wrong answer, and there are 5 choices, so we have to sit through him selecting 4 wrong answers before selecting the right one. On Wednesday I suggested to him that he pick what he thinks is the wrong answer and maybe he'll get a test question right. He smiled, but I wasn't joking.
By 8:00, if I'm lucky, class breaks up. Then I stand outside on Khalige Al Arabi street and hope an empty taxi comes by. I normally wait about 15 minutes, sometimes more. I let a student give me a ride back to my hotel the first night of class, but he ended up purposely driving the long way so we could "chat". I was stressing out because I had a conference call and now have decided that rides from students take longer than waiting for a taxi.
Every night this week I had a conference call. Around 9:15 or 10, depending on how long my call goes, I start to think about dinner, decide I'm too tired, and then I go to bed. I haven't even had a chance to work out a single night this week.
Training ends next Wednesday and I take my exam. After all of this, I better get that stupid certification.
Well, you get what you pay for. Here's how the evening typically goes. The class is supposed to start at 5:15, meaning I should be in a taxi, on my way home, by 7:15.
But the conference room where the training is, which can barely fit all of us students, is never open at 5:15. So we wait. I normally put my laptop on the copier outside the conference room and try to weed through my emails. Even though I don't have internet connection at the training site I can at least get the mails ready to send when I get back to my hotel.
By 5:45 the room is usually free. Then hurdle #2. Out here time is more of a suggestion than a reality. Half the students still will not be there even though training is now starting 30 minutes later than planned. We wait another 15 minutes for them to show up.
By 6 the class starts. But then Ahmed, the tea boy, sometimes forgets to order our dinner. The class is stopped while he is tracked down and told to get us food. The students then protest they can't look at one more training slide until they are fed.
By 7:30 I've already completed my exam. I've started passing the answers sneakily around the class to speed up the exam review. One student in particular will take 5 minutes to guess the answer to his question. He always seems to pick the wrong answer, and there are 5 choices, so we have to sit through him selecting 4 wrong answers before selecting the right one. On Wednesday I suggested to him that he pick what he thinks is the wrong answer and maybe he'll get a test question right. He smiled, but I wasn't joking.
By 8:00, if I'm lucky, class breaks up. Then I stand outside on Khalige Al Arabi street and hope an empty taxi comes by. I normally wait about 15 minutes, sometimes more. I let a student give me a ride back to my hotel the first night of class, but he ended up purposely driving the long way so we could "chat". I was stressing out because I had a conference call and now have decided that rides from students take longer than waiting for a taxi.
Every night this week I had a conference call. Around 9:15 or 10, depending on how long my call goes, I start to think about dinner, decide I'm too tired, and then I go to bed. I haven't even had a chance to work out a single night this week.
Training ends next Wednesday and I take my exam. After all of this, I better get that stupid certification.
Friday, June 4, 2010
cyclone
Cyclone Phet is hitting Oman now, and is said to be headed towards the UAE coast near Fujairah.
Today was overcast and there is a strong wind blowing noisily outside my hotel window. It sounds like a really bad wind storm in Denver. I went to the beach for a swim, and it was obvious something was going on.
The water here is green, and is so salty it doesn't have the usual weight of ocean water. I think it would be hard to drown in it as everything is very bouyant, though drowning is the second leading cause of death of children in the UAE, car accidents being the first. There's no current or waves to speak of, especially off the intercon beach since the water is closed in by a wall.
But today the water was different. There was poor visibility and the sand from the bottom was stirred up so badly I couldn't see more than a few inches into the water. It was as if there were a fire on the bottom of the ocean and the smoke was obscuring everything. There was also a strong current pulling everything out towards the wall dividing the swimming area from the rest of the ocean. The currents were on scale with currents I've experienced swimming off the coast of North Carolina.
I just went for a walk to get a sandwich for dinner and the air is so humid it was as if I was walking in the rain. Sand was blowing everywhere. I'm wondering if we'll have the same kind of flooding that we had in November when I had to walk home from the office in water up to my knees, and subsequently almost lost my flip flops.
Whatever happens tomorrow should be interesting. I have some snacks in my hotel room in case things get bad. I just hope the weather isn't bad on Sunday. Driving in the rain here is like driving in a blinding snow storm anywhere else in the world. And I'm going to be upset if the power is out in the gym tomorrow.
It's the first cyclone to hit the UAE in almost 50 years. Once again, bringing natural disasters where ever I go...
Today was overcast and there is a strong wind blowing noisily outside my hotel window. It sounds like a really bad wind storm in Denver. I went to the beach for a swim, and it was obvious something was going on.
The water here is green, and is so salty it doesn't have the usual weight of ocean water. I think it would be hard to drown in it as everything is very bouyant, though drowning is the second leading cause of death of children in the UAE, car accidents being the first. There's no current or waves to speak of, especially off the intercon beach since the water is closed in by a wall.
But today the water was different. There was poor visibility and the sand from the bottom was stirred up so badly I couldn't see more than a few inches into the water. It was as if there were a fire on the bottom of the ocean and the smoke was obscuring everything. There was also a strong current pulling everything out towards the wall dividing the swimming area from the rest of the ocean. The currents were on scale with currents I've experienced swimming off the coast of North Carolina.
I just went for a walk to get a sandwich for dinner and the air is so humid it was as if I was walking in the rain. Sand was blowing everywhere. I'm wondering if we'll have the same kind of flooding that we had in November when I had to walk home from the office in water up to my knees, and subsequently almost lost my flip flops.
Whatever happens tomorrow should be interesting. I have some snacks in my hotel room in case things get bad. I just hope the weather isn't bad on Sunday. Driving in the rain here is like driving in a blinding snow storm anywhere else in the world. And I'm going to be upset if the power is out in the gym tomorrow.
It's the first cyclone to hit the UAE in almost 50 years. Once again, bringing natural disasters where ever I go...
Thursday, June 3, 2010
culture shock
I was in a meeting a week ago with a few guys and some emirati women. The building where I work has normal-ish office cubes, and then a room at the far end of the building with a door that says, simply, "women" on it. This is where the local women are housed as they aren't allowed to be out and about with all the riff raff men (having been exposed to the men myself I think in a way this isn't a bad set up, but, all joking aside, it's kind of strange).
We were talking about the incident management processes for the company. This manager guy pontificated about how it was done. I think I'm a good consultant not because of any marketing skill, but because I'm pretty good at logic. I listened to the guy, and, having some experience with incident management, suggested that the steps he had outlined to me were illogical.
There was dead silence in the room. But, I could feel some kind of response from the local women even though I couldn't judge their reaction because they are covered up. The guy started to argue with me. I argued back. It was weird. I almost felt like somehow the local women were spurring me on. I finally got the guy to admit that he perhaps didn't understand the details of the process and that I should let the local women (who do the job) tell me how it's done.
It's like I've created a monster. The women came to a meeting on Sunday, but this time they didn't cover their faces. They argued outright with their boss. At the end I think we accomplished a lot and created some processes that actually reflect the way work is done. The boss took everything in stride and seemed, if anything, bemused that I'd turned his silent workers into outspoken critics.
After the meeting we all sat around and I guess "socialized" which is an important thing here. The boss mentioned his kid's birthday party and invited everyone. Money is important here so he made sure I knew I was being invited to a party in a private compound where one of the sheiks lives. Yawn. I do not attend children's birthday parties. Then he mentioned the drunk guys hanging around during the weekend and how he doesn't let his kids go out.
I said "stop the presses - drunk guys?!?!" (and then had to explain what that expression meant). It turns out the guards at his compound let people in if they belong to certain families even if they are not technically allowed in the compound. Some of them get drunk but no cop with arrest them for fear of being deported (many of the police force are from other countries).
I was like "that is insane! you would never be allowed to do that stuff in the US (e.g. driving drunk in a private compound, making noise until all hours of the morning because you're drunk and having a party.). The local women looked at me in shock. Then one of them said "but it's okay to be drunk in the US".
I was like not really and then explained to her how bars can get sued for serving someone to drunk, how paddy wagons wait outside certain bars to arrest drunk people, and how bad the laws are for drunk driving (okay, you don't get potentially sentenced to death like here, but still). The women were shocked. It's like they thought the US was one big block party with drunk people running around every where or driving around with a fifth of tequila sticking out the sun roof.
I also told them the drinking age was 21 which surprised them because it's lower in the UK (18). They were visibly shocked about this, and then when I told them some states don't sell alcohol on Sunday, and that in some states you have to go to a special store (like here) to buy alcohol, it was like I had told them that not only do UFOs exist but I was an alien from one of the space craft.
Anyway, strangely enough, one of the women came up after the meeting and invited me into the women's room if I ever wanted to talk. I should note that I hope that invitation is not effected by my team, all men, who seem to instinctively go into the women only bathroom at every office we visit (this is a very, very bad thing, and they should all know better because they've been here for a while).
There is a 23 year old british girl in the news lately, who was picked up by a taxi driver while drunk and leaving a bar, and then she was taken to her parents' house and raped by the taxi driver outside her house (apparently he thought she would be too drunk to notice what he was doing). She was arrested for being drunk when she called the police after finally escaping the taxi. Nothing has been done to the taxi driver. Everyone is saying what happened to her was her fault for being drunk.
It's stupid, for many reasons, to get drunk in this country. But that doesn't give a guy the right to rape anyone.
I hope that some day these women I'm working with (sort of working with) will walk into a meeting and not be shocked by a woman arguing with a man. I hope they will someday not have to argue with the boss, because they will BE the boss. And I hope that they won't be silent when things happen that shouldn't.
We were talking about the incident management processes for the company. This manager guy pontificated about how it was done. I think I'm a good consultant not because of any marketing skill, but because I'm pretty good at logic. I listened to the guy, and, having some experience with incident management, suggested that the steps he had outlined to me were illogical.
There was dead silence in the room. But, I could feel some kind of response from the local women even though I couldn't judge their reaction because they are covered up. The guy started to argue with me. I argued back. It was weird. I almost felt like somehow the local women were spurring me on. I finally got the guy to admit that he perhaps didn't understand the details of the process and that I should let the local women (who do the job) tell me how it's done.
It's like I've created a monster. The women came to a meeting on Sunday, but this time they didn't cover their faces. They argued outright with their boss. At the end I think we accomplished a lot and created some processes that actually reflect the way work is done. The boss took everything in stride and seemed, if anything, bemused that I'd turned his silent workers into outspoken critics.
After the meeting we all sat around and I guess "socialized" which is an important thing here. The boss mentioned his kid's birthday party and invited everyone. Money is important here so he made sure I knew I was being invited to a party in a private compound where one of the sheiks lives. Yawn. I do not attend children's birthday parties. Then he mentioned the drunk guys hanging around during the weekend and how he doesn't let his kids go out.
I said "stop the presses - drunk guys?!?!" (and then had to explain what that expression meant). It turns out the guards at his compound let people in if they belong to certain families even if they are not technically allowed in the compound. Some of them get drunk but no cop with arrest them for fear of being deported (many of the police force are from other countries).
I was like "that is insane! you would never be allowed to do that stuff in the US (e.g. driving drunk in a private compound, making noise until all hours of the morning because you're drunk and having a party.). The local women looked at me in shock. Then one of them said "but it's okay to be drunk in the US".
I was like not really and then explained to her how bars can get sued for serving someone to drunk, how paddy wagons wait outside certain bars to arrest drunk people, and how bad the laws are for drunk driving (okay, you don't get potentially sentenced to death like here, but still). The women were shocked. It's like they thought the US was one big block party with drunk people running around every where or driving around with a fifth of tequila sticking out the sun roof.
I also told them the drinking age was 21 which surprised them because it's lower in the UK (18). They were visibly shocked about this, and then when I told them some states don't sell alcohol on Sunday, and that in some states you have to go to a special store (like here) to buy alcohol, it was like I had told them that not only do UFOs exist but I was an alien from one of the space craft.
Anyway, strangely enough, one of the women came up after the meeting and invited me into the women's room if I ever wanted to talk. I should note that I hope that invitation is not effected by my team, all men, who seem to instinctively go into the women only bathroom at every office we visit (this is a very, very bad thing, and they should all know better because they've been here for a while).
There is a 23 year old british girl in the news lately, who was picked up by a taxi driver while drunk and leaving a bar, and then she was taken to her parents' house and raped by the taxi driver outside her house (apparently he thought she would be too drunk to notice what he was doing). She was arrested for being drunk when she called the police after finally escaping the taxi. Nothing has been done to the taxi driver. Everyone is saying what happened to her was her fault for being drunk.
It's stupid, for many reasons, to get drunk in this country. But that doesn't give a guy the right to rape anyone.
I hope that some day these women I'm working with (sort of working with) will walk into a meeting and not be shocked by a woman arguing with a man. I hope they will someday not have to argue with the boss, because they will BE the boss. And I hope that they won't be silent when things happen that shouldn't.
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