Clearing the Final Hurdle

As with most jobs, the final hurdle is often the highest, or the most difficult, or in the case of the one I finally fell over in my only ever 400m hurdles race, the one that is one to far !

The final hurdle for this job is the signatures.  Signatures from all of the people responsible on the client side, some who I have an intimate relationship with, and some who I’ve never even met.

As my regular readers will be aware, I have been suffering from a jittery client who, although he speaks perfectly acceptable English (whether he understands all of the nuances remains unconfirmed……), has been flatly refusing to sign anything unless it’s in Arabic.  This isn’t in the contract and hadn’t been the case until he got an e-mail, from somebody high up, suggesting that he shouldn’t sign anything unless it had been translated into Arabic.  This has caused me some discomfort for the last 6 weeks as we have had a shortage of useful Arabic support and I have had to wait for everything to be translated before I could train and support, and then get sign off for completion.

Today I delivered the last of my work with my heart in my mouth and the forms that I needed to be signed by him in my case.  A couple of chocolate biscuits and an hour later he was happy and signed to say I had completed everything I had set out to do – hubloodyray !

It’s not all completely over (although it’s as over for me as makes no difference), as the client introduced a new “checklist” on Sunday afternoon (in English) which is a sort of summary of everything I’ve done in the last 5 months (well, 98 days to be precise).  This amounts to a form of signatures where people are signing to say that they have already signed each of the milestone deliverables.  This is then signed by their manager (who I have never met), and the Executive Director of the Division (who I’ve never met).  It’s then signed by my manager (who’s on leave).  I’ve already got further than I thought I would last week, as I could see that, potentially, I wasn’t even going to get the last of the processes delivered for one reason or another – but that didn’t happen (which was nice).

I now have the newly translated form and am off to drop it off at his office and potentially pick it up in the morning, before I head off to Abu Dhabi to formally hand over and become un-employed again.  Unfortunately I’m unlikely to ever see the paper work completed (although someone else can sign in place of my boss), but you never know.  Getting it all signed off would be a bit of a challenge but it would be a self-satisfying one !

As for the rest of my life – I’m looking forward to my last dinner, night and breakfast in my desert hotel (I’m not looking forward to packing my life into a suitcase ready for two days of drifting and then an airport !).  I’m looking forward to my last visit to the gym, and to a swim in the pool, and to finishing the very very tiny amount of brandy I have stashed in the wardrobe – for medicinal purposes you understand…….

The weather is as it always is, and I haven’t spent much cash in the last 2 weeks (I did buy a packet of biscuits today to smooth the path of bureaucracy but I’m not going to try and claim that back !)  I’ll need to put some petrol in the car tomorrow to get back to Abu Dhabi but I don’t think I’ll try and battle that one through the last of the administrative hurdles (if I fill up my car from completely empty then it comes to just over a tenner and I think I can accept that !)  I then need to do a bit of shopping for the journey home (I have instructions !) and I may need to buy the odd drink – which may prove to be more difficult that you imagine as, I can’t remember if I told you this but, Thursday is an official public holiday.  This is to celebrate the Prophet Mohammed’s ascension into heaven (apparently).  He actually went up on the Wednesday but the public holiday has been deferred to Thursday to make it a long weekend.  Problem is that the whole country will be “dry” from 8pm on Tuesday till 8pm on Wednesday – I’m not yet sure if I’ll be able to get some beer at the off-licence as I promised my friend (who’s flat I’m going to stay in tomorrow and Thursday).  He’s the one that told me the whole place will be dry so it shouldn’t be a big surprise !

Other than that, I haven’t got a huge amount to say really.  I’ve been taking it easier in the gym, partly because I’m knackered and partly because Psycho isn’t around to beast me (or make me feel guilty for that matter).  I have been every night but once I’ve done half an hour’s fat burning I would normally go on and do some circuits or weights but everything aches and I don’t need a lot of convincing that I should be resting rather than pushing myself !

The real test will be next week when I’m home – can I get off my fat lardy arse and get out into the park without a training partner……… only time will tell.