Just Another Day in the Twilight Zone....

I don’t mention work and its frustrations, partly because I like to keep professional, however hideous things get, and partly because I don’t want to revert to whingeing here. But I do have to share this snippet with you, mainly to give you an insight into how unprofessional and just plain annoying it can be doing business here in the Middle East. Here’s a run-down of my day yesterday:

• Get up at 530 am. Curse the early hour. Get ready for work.
• Catch taxi to airport. Check in. Get on plane. Fly to Oman. (Note: It takes about 4/5 hours to drive to Oman…an hour to fly. So it’s further than the Manchester-London trip which is such a ubiquitous part of life in the North. Just giving you some perspective on the distance, folks.)
• Get off plane in Oman. Queue for one hour to get entry visa, get through immigration etc.
• Find driver. Another 30 minute drive to office. Arrive with half an hour to spare before the meeting.
• Meeting time comes. No client. 5 minutes pass, 10 minutes pass, 15 minutes pass.
• I suggest calling the client to see where they are.
• At that exact moment, a colleague receives a Blackberry message. The client isn’t coming. They can’t make it.
• This is despite the fact that we confirmed the meeting THE NIGHT BEFORE, and they knew that two people were flying in from Dubai.
• Refusing to be deterred, we pile into three cars, and drive to the client’s office. Half an hour away.
• We wait in reception for another half an hour.
• Finally, we’re led through 45 degree heat to a portacabin.
• We have a ten minute meeting.
• We leave in the three cars we arrived in.
• We go back to the office. Have a quick meeting. It’s already time to go back to the airport and fly back to Dubai. I haven’t even had time to check my emails.
• Half an hour drive to airport.
• Attempt to log in to airport wireless t finally do some work. It’s torturously slow. After 20 minutes to read 5 emails, I give up.
• Get on plane. Fly back to Dubai.
• E-gate card stops working. Queue to get it sorted.
• Dive into duty free (highlight of day)
• Get taxi home.
• Arrive home 14 hours after I left.
• Collapse through door, head into shower.
• Work until 11 pm answering emails and sorting everything that I couldn’t do during the day.
• Collapse into bed.

There are so many, many comments I could make, but I really think that all of the above speaks for itself, non? There are days when I would gladly give it all up to work for the camel man on Jumeirah beach. And that was one of them. Onwards and upwards….