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!
Friday, July 2, 2010
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.
Monday, May 31, 2010
dislike of tv runs in the family
I got this email from my brother. Kind of funny how much everyone in my family is alike...
"I just got in from Presque Isle, Maine (just south of Loring AFB)
I was staying at the Caribou Inn (seriously) for $79.95 a night. I too had a personal assistant. OK, not really, but the maid's name is Cheryl and I was the only guest at the hotel.
People in Maine are different. We were testing radio comms with our airship by parking along roads at certain distances from the base. Old guys on riding tractors kept coming up to us and asking us questions. They didn't seem to understand that we were testing an autonomous airship - they were more concerned that we might be messing up their satellite TV. They wouldn't believe us when we told them this was the first time we've turned the system on in 4 months. I guess satellite ranks on par with cable TV (it sucks)."
"I just got in from Presque Isle, Maine (just south of Loring AFB)
I was staying at the Caribou Inn (seriously) for $79.95 a night. I too had a personal assistant. OK, not really, but the maid's name is Cheryl and I was the only guest at the hotel.
People in Maine are different. We were testing radio comms with our airship by parking along roads at certain distances from the base. Old guys on riding tractors kept coming up to us and asking us questions. They didn't seem to understand that we were testing an autonomous airship - they were more concerned that we might be messing up their satellite TV. They wouldn't believe us when we told them this was the first time we've turned the system on in 4 months. I guess satellite ranks on par with cable TV (it sucks)."
my tv is stalking me
It's hard to believe, but I get at least 5 emails a day from my TV.
Hard to believe because the internet connections here have really gotten bad. At the hotel it's consistent but so slow I'm transported back to 1995, and not in a good way. At work the internet connection is like a crack head in the midst of a binge. It will sometimes drop every 5 minutes. That's particularly annoying not because we are using outside internet, but because we're doing all of our work on a server that we connect to via a wireless connection.
The joys of working here just keep increasing by the day.
And then, after working in the insane customer environment, where I sometimes have to waste up to 15 minutes that I need for working trying to find a place for my team members to sit, I come home, sit down with the paper, and try to relax.
And the tv turns itself on, announcing its presence with a civilized chime. Oh, ANOTHER email? Let's see. Today's emails first apologized for a mistaken fire alarm at 2 pm. Then the tv informed me another might happen and my tv was really sorry if I was inconvenienced. Why doesn't my tv know that I'm usually not in my room until 8 o'clock at night? Then the tv was wondering if I wanted to try today's special for dinner (I'm so tired right now I can't even order room service). My tv followed that email with another saying I had a bunch of unread emails. Finally, the tv informed me that the phone was going to call me (which it did, shortly afterward) to explain how to use the hotel messaging system.
My phone called me twice and left 2 voice mails. I deleted them to turn off the annoying flashing light, then I unplugged both phones and put them in a drawer. Which is where the tv would be right now too if I could fit it in there.
Please don't leave a comment telling me to unplug it. I can't reach the plug, it's behind a very elaborate cabinet. How ever, if anyone knows how to delete emails so the little envelope light would stop flashing on the tv I would be grateful (the arrow keys on my remote don't work, and Dasan keeps removing the duct tape I put over the flashing envelope, even after I left what I thought was a strongly worded email suggesting he leave the duct tape where it is).
Hard to believe because the internet connections here have really gotten bad. At the hotel it's consistent but so slow I'm transported back to 1995, and not in a good way. At work the internet connection is like a crack head in the midst of a binge. It will sometimes drop every 5 minutes. That's particularly annoying not because we are using outside internet, but because we're doing all of our work on a server that we connect to via a wireless connection.
The joys of working here just keep increasing by the day.
And then, after working in the insane customer environment, where I sometimes have to waste up to 15 minutes that I need for working trying to find a place for my team members to sit, I come home, sit down with the paper, and try to relax.
And the tv turns itself on, announcing its presence with a civilized chime. Oh, ANOTHER email? Let's see. Today's emails first apologized for a mistaken fire alarm at 2 pm. Then the tv informed me another might happen and my tv was really sorry if I was inconvenienced. Why doesn't my tv know that I'm usually not in my room until 8 o'clock at night? Then the tv was wondering if I wanted to try today's special for dinner (I'm so tired right now I can't even order room service). My tv followed that email with another saying I had a bunch of unread emails. Finally, the tv informed me that the phone was going to call me (which it did, shortly afterward) to explain how to use the hotel messaging system.
My phone called me twice and left 2 voice mails. I deleted them to turn off the annoying flashing light, then I unplugged both phones and put them in a drawer. Which is where the tv would be right now too if I could fit it in there.
Please don't leave a comment telling me to unplug it. I can't reach the plug, it's behind a very elaborate cabinet. How ever, if anyone knows how to delete emails so the little envelope light would stop flashing on the tv I would be grateful (the arrow keys on my remote don't work, and Dasan keeps removing the duct tape I put over the flashing envelope, even after I left what I thought was a strongly worded email suggesting he leave the duct tape where it is).
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