For Want Of Something Better To Do……..

I thought I would give you a little run down on the current levels of boredom circulating within our little group – we have reached the point of having official logos for t-shirt competitions ffs ! (I was robbed by the way…….my answer was way better than anyone else’s !).  The competition was to find a more appropriate use of the acronym “BPR” (which in this little world stands for Business Process Re-Engineering).  I truthfully can’t remember what my entry was but it must have been better than the winning one (which I won’t repeat on here because you won’t get it or think it’s funny).  There were a number of entries that couldn’t be put on t-shirts in an Arab country (mostly containing the word penis, but we won’t go into that……my personal favourite being “Bigger Penis Required”……). 

There were also a number which my have brought the company into disrepute with the client should they have ever seen them – my personal favourite from these being “Boring Pointless and Repetitive”.  Anyway, enough said on that subject.  I believe that the next competition will be based around the sayings of the current MD……..

Personally, I have tried to make some use of the boredom outside of the office, by trying to make myself more attractive to the opposite sex (“Even more attractive” I hear you cry…..).  I did start out just trying to be healthier, but there seemed to be something missing as far as incentive went, so I mentally added attractive.  I then quickly decided to add “opposite sex” following a conversation with one of our more flowery colleagues, who asking me why I was doing so much training, seemed to get terribly excited when I used the word attractive……..enough said on that little mini subject !

Anyway, I started training in the gym and elsewhere (elsewhere got more diverse as I started to get bored with the same gym….), dieting, well, more eating really really healthily (with the occasional treat), then cutting down on the drinking, stopping smoking, now exercising twice a day for at least 3 days a week…..the list goes on.  We can borrow bikes from the hotel so that has become a distraction (40km rides are becoming normal, with a 100km being planned).  Circuit training has also become a bit of distraction, with a booklet dug out of the bottom of my case being the most helpful, along with Psycho’s ministrations on a Wednesday night.  Psycho needs a positive mention at this point because, although I am acutely aware that I am tolerated in most aspects of her training (I think I’m a bit of a distraction for her as well because she has nobody to train with otherwise), she is getting slightly better at motivation – other than running in front of me in tight shorts that is, as I’m beginning to reach an acceptable level of fitness.

I’ve noticed that she’s starting to pick “bike” on a Tuesday evening now (from a list of bike, run or circuits) and I like to think that’s because it’s the only one of the three where I can push her rather than she has to wait for me……which she does by doing more press-ups whilst I catch up…….but it’s probably just because she’s bored with running from the rest of the week and that I can’t keep up anyway (I’m generally holding my own doing circuits on a Wednesday now, it’s just running I’m crap at.  I’m just not built to lumber along in 35+ deg heat for an hour, and there’s not much I can do about that !).

Back to the boredom thing – breakfast is getting longer now because none of us feel inclined to regularly get into work early.  I should explain where we’re at with the work thing.  For roughly 3 months I, along with my fellow Subject Matter Experts, have been designing fantastic new processes, in line with global Leading Practice, for our friendly, helpful and attentive clients.  There are a number of milestones within this aspect but the critical one is to get the processes “Signed-off” which literally means getting a signature on a copy of the particular process which signifies the Divisional Managers acceptance of your work.  When this is done, we move to a training phase where we produce a training plan and materials for each of the processes (I have 16) and then deliver the training and hold their hands for a period post training to ensure that they have actually got it.

All of this has to be done using specialist Arabic speaking trainers or interpreters.  We have plenty of interpretation support but there are generally only two trainers (and I won’t use one of them because he insists on wearing a baseball cap to dinner and talking on his mobile whilst others are trying to eat…….I may have touched on this previously……..come the glorious day he'll be burie up to his neck in sand, next to teh Guardian readers, smeared in the same jam !).  Anyway, there are roughly 20 subjects in two separate cities (therefore 40 subjects) who have between 12 and 30+ processes to train each – you can do the maths, so it doesn’t take the brains of an Archdeacon to work out that that we might have a slight resource issue.  As I alluded too a few days ago, producing a spreadsheet isn’t going to solve that problem, despite what some people may think.  So having made charts, training materials, slides etc. etc. etc. I’m now keeping my head down while it’s all being translated so as not to look like I haven’t anything to do.

Writing my blog at work is good for that (it’s just gone 11 in the morning here).  Most of us here are contractors or sub-consultants of some description, and it’s perfectly acceptable to be looking for work whilst coming to the end of your current contract, so there’s been plenty of that going on as well – I’m pretty sure there isn’t a single recruitment consultant operating in the GCC, in my field, that hasn’t had at least one copy of my CV in response to some spurious advert or other.  The UK agencies aren’t far behind either !  We shall see how far we get shortly but at least I’ve given myself plenty of time to find something to follow on with.

On that note I think I’ve probably milked this subject for about as many column inches as it’ll take, so on to the inventory:

Gym – circuits in the park last night, rest day today, 20km bike ride planned for first thing tomorrow and weights in the afternoon.

Food – eating for Britain at the moment.  Have moved my diet slightly to accommodate smoked salmon and scrambled eggs in the morning (with grilled tomatoes obviously….).  Am getting thoroughly bored with salad or garden vegetables for dinner though, generally with whatever chicken happens to be on the menu.  That was why lasagne was such a treat a couple of nights ago.

Weather – we seem to be in the middle of a sustained period of clear skies and souring temperatures.  Every day is mid 40s at least and it’s still hovering around 40 as it gets dark around 7.30 (which doesn’t make outdoor circuit training any easier !).  It’s still windy but not as bad as it has been so the dust storms have slipped away quietly.

Money – I went mad yesterday.  AED 3 for my falafel, 20 for my laundry and 20 for a haircut……..I had to go and lie down after that !  I’m still worrying about afternoon tea on Saturday and lord knows what spending next week in Dubai…….

Alcohol - nothing for most of this week, but I fully intend to make up for that tonight !