Archive for the ‘bahrain’ Category
Protected: 12th July
Monday, July 13th, 2009Results
Saturday, July 4th, 2009The results are in. Half of the workforce have been sacked. Half retained. Weeks and weeks of unspeakable tension. I have never known anything like it in all my professional life. Colleagues working together one day. Sacked and isolated the next. Around me like flies they dropped over the last half a year. The Polish designer who had been brought in when times were good but exposed as being hopeless when times were bad. Sacked. His Hummer and villa now gone. The Indian technician who was willing if not able. Sacked. His wife joining him in Bahrain three days before he was given the chop. The Irish concept guy – a luxury but a luxury with hopes and dreams just like any of us sacked. The Filipino designer from the Dubai office who kept coming in late, calling in sick but had a good had. Sacked. The laid back ecology guy. African Muslim. Sacked. All these people I knew and worked with at one time or another. Gone. I knew it was only a matter of time until it was, who had danced around the bullets for so long, would be given the talk. I knew. I watched their faces. The desert was gone and I was summoned to work up in their lair for a reason. I knew they wanted me gone so they would live. You watch faces. You pretend to read lips and body languages. You can’t work. You can’t think. You just want to know. You just want someone to say one thing or the other but its a tough world and nothing is happening and the economy is gone and you have a pregnant wife and young son and you just want to do a job. I can’t face another sacking but I just want to know. Have I done enough? I have done enough before and it never worked. Have I done enougfh this time?
Last week dozens more were sacked. They say the company is now half the size it was when I joined. There are no new staff anymore just old ones waiting. I’m still waiting. The big bosses decided to, at last, say something. They said no more drip drip sackings. The last culling is the last until the end of the year. They say. We are safe until 2010.
I did it. For once it worked for me. Nothing I did here was any different to how I acted in Asia. If I was that bad I’d be out. Dead. Months ago. But I am not. I am OK. I am also vindicated and now safer than I hoped to be when I arrived. A part of the furniture and one of the best in my department and therefore the region. Life is changing. For once the gods were with me.
Protected: 5th june 2009
Friday, June 5th, 2009Protected: July 2nd 2009
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009The Eagle Has Landed
Saturday, January 17th, 2009
Where am I? I am in the Coffee Bean in Bahrain. A Starbucks lite place also found in Shanghai oddly enough. Pudong Airport was dead when I flew out on Wednesday night. I slept most of the way and awoke in Dubai dazed and confused. Another 4 hours of aimless wandering until I caught the connecting 55 minute flight to Bahrain. A brief drive to the serviced apartment and it was like I have never been away. Then a quick drive to my companies head office to sign some forms and the rest of the day was mine. I brought some food and crashed and slept for 11 hours. The next day was a Friday which is the first day of the weekend here so again I had time to burn. Thankfully I knew people out here that I have worked with in Shanghai and its all been very friendly and jovial and a world away from the tension and gloom of our office in China. Its Saturday morning and I am due to look at some houses and meet the people I will be working with over the next few years. I hope the next few years. If I have to move country and find somewhere else to live in the next six months I will know I have been cursed or my Karma is fucked.
The Time Of Your Life
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009Please excuse this rather self indulgent post but I want to just record the things that have happened to me as I don’t think they will happen to me in the same way or at the same pace ever again and I know I will forget it all as time goes by so its A GOOD THING to have a record of these crazy scenes. December was a hectic month for me and my family and at the time when people are beginning to switch off and think of long holidays I had to step up and represent myself in Bahrain. It all went well and you find me now in Shanghai killing time waiting for various formalities to be completed before the family things are again packed up and shipped to Bahrain. Anyhow I digress. I spent my last day in Bahrain working and wandering the streets in the evening trying to soak in the last of the atmosphere and I confess a feeling of sadness. That night I flew to Dubai for a transfer and then a nice empty plane to Shanghai. The next day in Shanghai, jetlagged, I met my boss and confirmed that I wanted to work in Bahrain and it was all good with him. Then, back to my office to speak to colleagues who were seemingly pleased to see me (apart from my wanker of a boss who hid in his office). Then, following an extended meeting, a frantic dash to Pudong airport where I caught the late flight to Bangkok for Christmas. Landing in Bangkok at midnight I was pleased to spend the next day at the house and in the evening attend the Christmas Party at Sports Club. The following day was the funeral of the Big Man of the family and it was a semi state funeral with the Prince of Thailand in attendance. I had no idea how important this relation was but as we followed in a police convoy and as the coffin was being driven from his house (where his body had been in state for 100 days) to a temple I was struck to how small the world is right now. In three days I have worked in the Middle East, lived in my flat in Shanghai and then gone home to my family in Bangkok. Three different worlds in three days.
The End
Thursday, December 18th, 2008That was the two weeks that was. Two weeks in Bahrain and after a shaky start I have to say I’m quite attached to the place. I feel relaxed, things are easy and work is not cloaked in 5000 years of face saving and suspicion. You know, do this do that and if its wrong I’ll tell you and if it’s good I’ll tell you. Quite refreshing. The more I think about the people I work with in China the angrier I get as I am now being frozen out. As far as they are concerned out of sight is out of the office for good. So much for the look see I was promised before I left but then this is very Chinese. Nothing confrontational, nothing to the face just a wall of silence. How very typical. You are probably thinking that I have serious issues but I don’t its just that there is a huge cultural difference between China and the west in terms of how we approach design. HUGE. There is no point banging my head against the wall anymore, I’m off to Bahrain. That’s it folks, China is over. I’m leaving the square and I am taking my family with me. Clear blue skies, higher standard of living, car, edible food and civility. Its blandsville in Bahrain but its better than the hate (and it can only be termed that) which I am currently experiencing from two people at work. Hate. That’s a strong word but that’s how it feels. Still, meeting with the Big Boss tomorrow but I think he’s been got whilst I have been away – he seems colder but we will see. I love you China but I am not allowed to work in your country anymore but I’ll be back seeking my revenge.
Liberty City
Saturday, December 13th, 2008Life in Bahrain is interesting. I have been here a week and it has slightly changed my perceptions of the Middle East and of Muslims. Bahrain is basically a rock with buildings on. The landscape is flat, arid and barren with the north part, Manama, being the only city. Manama is Bahrain and as you go south the buildings fizzle out with just sea and sand at the south. Bahrain is more developed than China and far more civilised which does place it on the sterile side slightly but then sterile is good when you have a young child. It is also very small and the population is 700,000 so its like a village more than a country. In fact, I think of it more like Liberty City with each area having its own character and lots and lots of cars driving aimlessly around. Oh yes, cars, you need a car. I have tried to walk around but its not practical as everything here has been designed with the car in mind so its either sand or road. The landscape is very flat and there are only two ‘sky scrapers’ with most building here being either 10 stories or less and placed arbitrarily around town and its not uncommon for buildings to be next to empty, sandy, voids and these areas allow Liberty City style antics as you can go off road and cut through these places to your destination. Of the 700,000 people that live here one third are expats and most of these are Indian. Then Pakistanis then Filipinos and Thais and then, much further down the list, are the Brits and Aussies with a few American service people dotted around but it works well with the Indians doing the cleaning and the Filipinos ad Thais working in all the shops and the highly paid westerners working in the top jobs. That’s how it was and that’s how it is.
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Tea In The Sahara
Saturday, December 6th, 2008I flew out from Pudong on a cold, quiet Tuesday night. I said goodbye to my colleagues in the day and my wife and son in the evening which was very emotional. My son is now at an age where he recognises and knows people and he will miss me when it dawns on him I am no longer there. I took a taxi to Longang Road station and then the Maglev to the deserted airport. Quietly and efficiently we all checked in. There were some dudes praying at the gate and there were Arabs and middle eastern men and ladies everywhere as well as a smattering of Chinese and one or two honkies. I remember being momentarily scared and wary of getting on the plane lest they were all shoe bombers and terrorists and then it occurred to me how brainwashed I have been with my opinions of Muslims and the Middle East just I had been with China before I landed there. (more…)