My First Mobilephone At Last

Surprised!? Please don’t get me wrong. It is not my first personal mobilephone. It is my first mobilephone issued by the company I work for. And I received it yesterday, 29 January 2009.

It is long overdue. Exactly one year and four months in my contract, with eight months left, they eventually gave me a phone to cater for my business calls.

Well, during my first day I know that I am entitled for a mobilephone or at least a simcard, I don’t mind using my own mobilephone. During my first week, I really did not make a big fuss out of it, I don’t have any calls to make anyway.

But months came and go, and nobody from the administration or personnel department bothers if I already got my mobilephone to use for my business calls. At this time I have already some unavoidable business calls to make and so all the while I am using my own mobilephone and paying these business calls from my own pocket.

When it became getting costly to me, I decided to talk to the (former) project manager if I can have at least an allowance for my business calls, forget about the mobilephone, just an allowance will do. To my surprise, he asked me why I should need allowance for calls, to whom I am calling and I asked me to use our landline to make calls.

I felt my ears turned red hot and steam coming out from my nose like a wild bull. I wanted to rip-off his head for such a stupid question, but not surprising from a stupid person (excuse me for the harsh word), but I tried to be civilized and maintain my composure and answer him with all self-control.

I said;

Firstly, it is for business calls I am asking, not for my personal calls,

Secondly, I am entitled for it,

Thirdly, my work requires liaising with all the department heads and especially to site personnel who are most often not at the site offices.

Lastly, our landline cannot make calls to mobilephones.

He said he will think about it, but my allowance for business calls never came.

One day, the (former) project manager came to my office and he asked me to urgently call my immediate superior who is in Riyadh at that time. I told him I can’t call him I don’t have a mobilephone. He pointed at my mobilephone and said, “What is that, isn’t that a mobilephone?”. I said, “Yes, it is, but it is for my personal use and that is a mobilephone” pointing at his mobilephone.

“Use the phone (landline)” he said.

“It doesn’t work for overseas calls, it is blocked” I replied to him.

“Well ask the secretaries to call for you” he insists.

“It is lunchtime now, the secretaries went out for lunch”

He end up calling my immediate superior using his mobilephone and passing it to me.

For one moment, the (former) project manager became my secretary, J J

Anyway, it is not about having a mobilephone, I can afford to have my own, but it is about your entitlement. In this part of the world, the culture and the mentality, there is a saying that perfectly fits;

“A baby cannot have his/her milk until he/she cries”.

Cruel it may seem but this is reality. If you don’t claim what is entitled for you, you won’t have it. Sometimes even if it is clearly your entitlement, you still need to fight for it.

This is reality here in the Middle East.

And I learned that from my first mobilephone.

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Sir Fred is back

After a month and a-half deserved break, Sir Fred is back from the land of 7,107 islands, the Philippines.

Sir Fred is our ES&H Manager in our project. In his watch, he brought honors and accolades to our project and overall to the company. To name a few, the Best Contractor of the month in Housekeeping, Best Contractor of the month in ES&H and 3,000,000 accident-free Man-Hours.

To laymen’s point of view, maybe it is not a big deal. Best in housekeeping? What is that? 3,000,000 accident free Man-Hours? What is that? But for those men and women in the construction industry, it is a big deal.

Firstly, housekeeping in construction terminology is not the usual housekeeping we all know about like making up your bed, cleaning the house, throwing the garbage, washing the dishes, etc. No, it is not that simple as it may seems although the principle is almost the same.

Put it this way, say your office table, you have your computer, in/out trays, few pens, few folder files and a coffee mug. How often do you able to make it in order, tidy and spick and span. Maybe for a day? For a week? For a month? Now we progress to a bigger perspective, say your office (room), how will you manage to keep it spick and span. For a day? For a week? Now try to imagine a massive area of a construction site, with hundreds of workers, bulks and bulks of materials, construction debris, wastes, equipments, etc.

Keeping the construction site tidy, everything in order and free from hazards to health and safety. This is what we call, in the construction industry, Housekeeping. Challenging huh!!!

Now, the 3,000,000 accident free man-hours. What is this all about.

Man-hour means, one man working in one hour. For the whole day that you worked for eight hours, you have logged 8 man-hours. Let us say that for the whole day you did not fall from you chair, or bump you head, or bump your knees under your table, or cut your fingers, or spilled your hot coffee on you, did not caught your fingers while closing your drawers, etc. Then your have 8 man-hours without incidence.

So, what is 3,000,000 man-hours like? It is like you working for 1,027 years, 365 days a year, without any incidence or accident. Mind-blowing huh!!! You might ask how anyone could work for 685 years. Good question. In the construction industry, hundreds of workers are involved in a project. That is how they manage to log millions of man-hours.

Best housekeeping, 3,000,000 man-hours. Pretty cool huh?

Unfortunately, Sir Fred will be in for a surprise. A week after he left for his vacation, one of our refueling trucks has caught on fire at the site. The truck was totally burned down, literally. The generator set that was being refueled at that time was also destroyed. And a week before Sir Fred is due to arrive, one of our steel worker has an accident. His hand was caught by the steel bender machine and it crushed his fingers.

One of the set-back as a result of the 2 incidence is that our project has already logged 3,600,000 (+) man-hours without incidence. We are at the home stretch of hitting the 4,000,000 milestone which was the project to be achieving come this February 2009, a very big setback for the project team especially to our safety team. Now we are back to zero man-hour and a lot of catching up to restore the lost pride.

Fortunately though, the 2 incidences had no fatalities and except for the crushed fingers no other injuries were reported, and the project team is very thankful to that.

With Sir Fred back in the project, obviously facing insurmountable challenge and with dispirited safety team brought about the 2 incidences, I am confident that the team will be back on track and we will soon be taking some safety awards again.

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Under The Weather

I am a little bit under the weather today, the usual common cold, coughing and a headache. Other than that, I should be fine.

The weather is still cold here in Doha, within the range of 14-20C. And those like me who hails from the tropics must have been chilling if not enjoying a cold weather that we don’t have back home. As for me, without this cold, coughing and headache, I enjoy the cold weather. Especially during Fridays, after lunch, I slip under the blanket and by the time I come out from my cocoon it’s already 5pm.

Mamang, my colleague’s wife, is not also feeling well. She's also under the weather so to speak. Yesterday night, she was not able to get some sleep.

Mamang, by the way, is a motherly word for endearment. Mamang means mother.

So, Mamang was not able to sleep the whole night, no thanks to her insomnia. The following morning, I did not see her downstairs which is her normal ways. She religiously prepares Sir Manny’s breakfast and some snack packs before he speeds off to work.

Arriving home from work that evening, there was still no sign of Mamang. No smell of home-cooked dinner, the television was off, she usually tune-in the television to Dr. Phil just in time for me to arrive, and the dinner table was empty.

It occurred to me then that there must be something wrong with Mamang. But I try to shrug it off and to not think negatively. And so I told myself, “maybe they went out for church practice” which they usually attend. By the way, four of us in the villa are all church choir members.

But when I went to the kitchen, the rice cooker was cold. Mamang always at least cooks rice for me if they leave the house knowing that I haven’t had my dinner. Trying to switch my mind positively as hard as I might, I conceded to think that there must be something wrong with Mamang. I just contented myself that whatever that might have happened to Mamang is not that serious.

I quickly prepared our dinner. As I was preparing dinner, Sir Manny pop-in and told me Mamang is not feeling well. She was not able to sleep the night before and she just stayed upstairs in her room the whole day without breakfast and lunch. She was not able to sleep the whole day either.

After cooking dinner and prepared the dinning table, Mamang asked us to go ahead as she has no appetite. And so we took our dinner. But I told Sir Manny that it would be much better if Mamang takes her dinner as she haven’t had her breakfast and lunch. So he went back upstairs to fetch Mamang.

While having dinner, Mamang looks pale, restless and depressed. Trying to lift her spirit, I relate to her the good happenings at work today. Opening up a “good-news” topic back home. Ooopppsss!!!! Big mistake!!!! Reminding home just made it worst.

Mamang suddenly says she misses her children and her grandchildren. Trying to hide her tears with her hand as she rests her heavy head on her petite hands with her cheeks on her palms, her tears just refuses to hide and divulge her real feelings. Mamang is under the weaher and homesick….

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My First Blog

I have started my first blog, at last.

I’ve been reading blogs, randomly, for sometime now and I can say that I enjoy reading specially the topics / posts that interest me and that which I can relate to. By reading posts, I was encouraged to put up my first blog. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to start my first blog.

Firstly, I don’t know what would be my approach or the purpose of my first blog. Would it be a personal blog, just random thoughts or would I be concentrating to a particular topic.

That’s when I started looking for posts that give tips in creating your own blog. I managed to gather useful tips to start my first blog. But so much information, terms, terminologies within the blogsphere that it overwhelm me, a newbie…ok,. A setback.

But anyway, I followed one simple tip that I understood, by heart, without those techy jargons that a newbie like me could not help but wonder. And it says “START A BLOG”.

Simple huh!

It really works. Logically you will never ever able to start your first blog if you don’t START A BLOG.

Anyway, the real idea is to have a hand-on on blogging. The other fine points about blogging will be learned as you progress and as you get used to it.

And so…

I have started my own blog, at last..

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