INGULFED
(Notes for the Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah)Archive for work
Forget-me-not
Sri Lanka Part Ten
Sri Lanka Part Nine
They told us we would find elephants on the road to Hambantota at dawn. It was six-thirty, and in the air that hung with a heavy mist and a distinct paucity of elephants, we pushed west. And when we got west, elephants, as they had for so many days, were not.
In Hambantota, the fast paved road continued through northwest to the ancient city Anuradhapura, famous as an ancient capital of the island nation, and not at all known for having elephants. Let down, I turned off onto an uninviting dirt road just to have a peek and to turn around. And lo, the giant hindquarters of our proboscidean friend materialized, just down the path.
اسبوع مرحبا — Marhaba Week
الجزء الثالث — Part Three
In my job, I wear many ghutra. “I’m a Program Coordinator,” I tried to explain to an Egyptian security guard, Hasan. “I… coordinate programs.”
“What kind of programs?” he asked.
Going from here to there, that’s a program. Gotta be coordinated. Setting up rooms: program. Staffing an event: program. Telling people things: program.
Just then a parent of one of the students rushed in holding empty boxed lunches, looking around for a place to throw them out.
“Where’s a trash can? I should’ve just left this on the bus.”
I told her she could just leave it with me, no worries. And there I was, business casual and holding (oddly warm) trash.
Hasan smiled. “Welcome to your new job!”
A store full of ghutras, as worn by many Emiratis and the mannikin on the right.
Known elsewhere as a keffiyeh, this plastic man is wearing a ghutra (white) and iqal (black).
اسبوع مرحبا — Marhaba Week
الجزء الثاني — Part Two
As the old saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. And busy times call for outsourcing.
In these times when the start of busyness is long before the start of business, I have found many emails in my inbox from 5 or 6 in the morning. But somewhere, it’s later than that. Something is fishy.
And remember what they said about giving a man to fish or teaching him to fish? Give a man an email to write, and he’ll save you ten minutes. Forward all your emails to India, and you’ll save yourself a whole vacation. All I’m saying is that people might be micro-outsourcing… not that there’s nothing wrong with that.
