The Announcement

It’s been a month since our company has released their announcement.

Four months ago, our company made an announcement that the management level in our head office had decided to remain in Qatar. They advised us to maintain good business relations with our subcontractors, suppliers and clients. That we will secure new profitable projects after a couple of financially disastrous projects over the years our company has been in Qatar.

The management has also prepared some motivations for everyone. A bonus awaits us once we finish our project by 31 March 2010 and another bonus once handed over to the Client by 30 April 2010.

Everyone must have been happy and had revived hope of staying in Qatar. I was one amongst those who quietly celebrated. I was beginning to like Qatar and I want to stay in Qatar. I don’t know with the rest, but everyone was wearing a smile on their faces when they left the meeting room.

Everyone has new hope, new beginning, new motivations and need to work hard to complement the company’s new motivaton and to stay and be competitive in Qatar.

Last month there was an emergency meeting, everyone was surprised. All the senior staffs including Site Staffs were called in. The meeting room was full to the brim.

I thought to myself, this is very unusual and I was beginning to have a hunch. As we were waiting for the Vice President, the room becomes eerie. Slowly and slowly the noise had died down. Everyone seems to realize this must be an important announcement. A very important announcement, that everyone has a stake or will be affected.

When the Vice President has arrived, the silence in the room was deafening, you can hear a pin drop.

After going around the bush a bit, the bomb was dropped.

“The company has decided to close operation in Qatar in the meantime”. Everyone was shocked and surprised, the Project Manager was not spared.

The Vice President went on with his scripted speech, but for a moment no one seems to care. He talked about the justification of such a decision, tried to make some rationale and the measures way forward.

As a solace, he offered everyone to move to Saudi Arabia as the company tries to consolidate its limited resources to cater the substantial projects on hand in Saudi Arabia which is around SAR 14,000,000,000.00, yes with the capital B.

After the announcement everyone left the room very quiet, without a sound not even a sigh and with a common face, a poker face.

Our secretaries might have noticed the eeriness after the conference room door opened. That he cannot help but followed me in my office to scoop what have happened. I shared him the news and his face turned blank.

I was thinking to myself, how they can decide on that drastically. With over one thousand employees in Qatar, have they thought of impact to so many lives. How many families will be affected? What about those who might have passed on the opportunity four months ago, just to stand by the company when they announced that they are staying. Is this what they deserve for staying behind the company through thick and thin?

No one can change that now, the owners had decided. Emotional statements will never overcome the financial interests behind the decision of the owners.

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First Car I Drive Around Doha

After getting my driving license and as promised by our Administration Manager that he will get a car in two days, I was so excited. Two days had passed and the car never showed up…. Only after another two days, not bad after all he fulfilled his promise.

March 4, 2010, Mr. Gabriel gave me a 2005 Honda Civic.

It is not a new car, but at least it is working fine. It was actually the car of an ex-colleague who just left the company. I was a bit dismayed as I was expecting that the company will rent a car for me.

Renting a car in Doha is somewhat a good option to have your ride. Most of the rented cars are good as new, as if you just bought a new car. But look what I have. A 2005 Honda Civic with dents and scratches everywhere, no speaker at the rear seats, a blurry left head lights, the dusty inside stinks as spoiled sweat under the hot summer sun….sigghhs.

I wanted to complain, but my wife with a cooler head, as always, prevails over my ranting. “We will just clean it, freshen the air and would be a modest car in no time”, she said. To lighten me up, she jokingly said the dents and scratches should work for me, even if I scratch and dent it, I will be off-the-hook because the dent and scratches were “always” been there. Hmmm…sounds logical huh?

So we clean it.

Driving on the main road on my own for the first time was really different than I thought. I thought it would be the same as when I was driving during my training. The beating of my heart races against my mind on the thought that I am side by side with another car especially when I imagine I am between two trailer trucks on my both sides.

And so that day, I move out of the office at about 1:45pm, just to avoid the Thursday rush hour.

When I stopped at a red light, I called my wife and told her I’m coming home early. She asked me who’s driving me home. “I am driving by myself, I’m reaching home now”.

Her tone changed, “And why are you on the phone, aren’t you suppose to be driving?”. But before I can say the red light is on, the phone went dead.

I reached home safely, and my wife was there waiting for me, seeing me driving a car for the first time.

She teasingly commented that I was driving very slow. Yeah, alright, am I supposed to be speeding when approaching our gate?

After cleaning the car, I asked her to come with me to pump some gas in the car. We went for a drive to the nearby petrol station. She must have been nervous, it was the first time she rides with me on a car.

The last time she rode with me as the one driving was in a tricyle. With her sister they rode on the tricycle and we went to the beach. I was not really that good driver at that time, I don’t know why I had the courage to take them for a ride. My wife and sister-in-law, swears they will never ride with me again.

Everything went well, we pump some gas, and went back home. So far so good.

It was Thursday and we decided that we move from the Villa earlier and drop some of our packages to our new place and from there we will go to our church.

The road has become busier now and started to get dark. When I was above to enter the main road from the service road, I never thought that it was that hard. I have not gotten used to using the car mirrors, so taking me time to enter the busy main road. Everyone behind was already honking. Terrible and embarrassing and my wife seem to want to tease me or she’s trying to make me cool headed and relaxed.

Using the car mirrors is really one important tool of your car. I was having difficulty changing lanes and because of that I tend to go slow on round abouts and irritates the other motorist. For two weeks, I really cared to learn on my own how to use those side and rear view mirrors.

We once went to Lulu hypermart, as we were parking I was just reversing not noticing what was behind me. When I hit something, my wife shouts with a laugh, “Ok, we’re parked”. We quickly went out form the car and check what we hit. There stand the mart security staff, pointing at the posts, thanks God, it was not the security staff. Luckily there is a post in there, otherwise I could have hit the car on the other lot.

I was somehow disoriented on what had happened. I had a load of teasing and laughing with my wife what had just happened as we proceeded to do our groceries. After more than one hour we went back to our parked car. And there it is, parked and the engine is running. The Security staff was still there watching over our car."Sir, you forgot to turn off your engine", said the staff. "No, I turned on remotely", jokingly as I was showing him my key and he smiled gamely.

And guess what, I got a ton of teasing this time from my wife, enough to laugh ourselves on bed till past midnight.

I realized that driving really requires complete concentration in order to keep you car total control and preserve your own safety and safety of other motorists.

I had a lot of misadventures related to my first month of driving, especially the first 2 weeks which will make this post too long. So, you rather watch out for that post.

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