Landed into the heat on Thursday night late at about 11pm. After a visit to the bar with a friend I got to my company apartment at 1:30am. Couldn't get to sleep until 3am, partly because I was / am in a single bed!
My mind was racing with a million thoughts, ranging from instantly missing people to being excited and not wanting to sleep. I spent the weekend out in the sun, drinking, catching up wtih friends and enjoying myself before starting work yesterday.
Now, it's just back to reality. This office might be bigger than the last and full of different people but I can't see the window that shows off Dubai. I may as well be in a bunker in Bradford. That I can live with, it's the little Dubai nuances that I struggle to grasp with the variety of nationalities and levels of spoken English. I don't expect perfect English from everyone because frankly, it's harsh to expect that when my Arabic is minimal...but if I just keep saying 'Yes' to everything I don't understand then I'm going to end up in trouble.
ah, but saying "yes" to everything is pretty standard practice here... what's difficult for us to comprehend is that it doesn't necessarily mean "yes" but instead "I'm not sure what you really want, but please go away and maybe by the time you come back you will have forgotten about it/ moved country/ found someone else to do it".
ReplyDeleteTypical conversations therefore run something like this:
- Have you got X in stock?
- Yes ma'am
- OK, so where is it?
- Yes ma'am. Next week ma'am...
- OK, so you haven't got it in stock now then?
- Yes ma'am...
[client leaves = RESULT!]
This blog sucks
ReplyDelete