Gaza

What happened (and still happening) to the Freedom flotilla is beyond my words to describe.

It just keeps getting worse and worse everyday. It's like Israel keeps trying to do inhuman actions and tests how far it can go without being stopped.

It can't get any worse than this can it? A ship that is filled with food, medications and learning materials gets attacked by Israel Military. Cowards.

I pray to Allah that this terrorist country get what it deserves. Yes. They are the terrorists, not people who are trying to defend themselves.

An Omani journalist was on board and alhamdulilah the news back is that he is fine.

I admire the courage of the Turks and all the people who participated in this noble action.

Let us all pray for all of the Martyrs to reach the highest levels in heaven and for the rest to be back home safe.


End of Blog post.

Bureaucracy

I have been hearing this word a lot but I never found myself dealing with it till recently.

Ever since we took over this new project, 80% of the time we spend is in dealing with bureaucracy issues because they are the main reason the project is WAY behind schedule. it exists to make whatever possible impossible.

no matter how much I explain, you guys won't understand how bureaucracy is involved in every single aspect we deal with. I once read this quote about bureaucracy which was funny but somehow true (Sharr Al Baliyyah ma yu'97ik)
“I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughtnut... I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. To some skeptical friend, 'Don't even act like I didn't get that doughnut, I've got the documentation right here... It's in my file at home. ...Under "D".














you think that's funny, here is a story that happened at work yesterday. We occupied a new office space and we are sharing it with 2 other companies. I was really tired and stressed and needed some tea to straighten up my mind. I call the tea boy to ask him to make me tea and this is his reply: "Sorry sir, I can't make you tea without my boss's permission, I need you to submit a letter requesting my service and it needs the signature from the project manager and must be signed by the developer"

Blank...

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Still in shock...

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having a "WTF" moment.

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ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!!!!!!

I used to get tea everyday when I used to be a visitor. now that I'm an employee, I can't?! Anyway my colleague handled it the old cowboy way: "no need for any letter, you bring us tea and whatever we require and if your boss has a problem let him deal with me"

The reason why this project came back to life after a messy state is because our CEO is the biggest enemy of bureaucracy. he follows a simple way of dealing with it:" I would rather apologize later than ask for permission."

I'm sure many of you deal with bureaucracy everyday in work and school. you know that when "paper work increases as you spend more and more time reporting on the less and less you are doing." <<< Gotta love that quote.



End Of Blog Entry...

People are so different

Throughout my job, and being around one of my friends, I got to meet many homeowners from different backgrounds, different personalities, different perspectives, etc.

It’s really interesting in so many ways. I met people who had lousy jobs but inherited lots of money. Some started from scratch and now have become millionaires and some started normally, found a connection, and then built their empire based on that connection.

People are also different in how they treat each other. We met some people who seem to be born with stand-up comedians' character, and some that are just too cold you would yawn in the middle of the day just talking to them.


I'm not being biased here, but honestly, amongst the many homeowners that i have met, the Arabs were the best (generally). I'm not saying all the non-Arabs were bad and the Arabs were great, but that's in general. Most of them were very understanding, talk politely and they were open and easy going.


I will post some good and bad examples.

Special features in the house
- Good: one guy was really upset that he ordered some extra stuff for his house but they weren’t there. He just asked the construction manager politely to check if those stuff can be added or not. A second after that he was throwing jokes about his assistant having an iPhone which is "a joke" to him.
- Bad: one guy found out that he does not have a big back-yard (even though its size is standard in that complex) and kept bitching about it for the whole hour of inspection! :S

Material used in toilets:
- Good: one guy was complaining that the material used in toilets were bad in quality, but when he was told that the same material used in all the houses, he accepted it.
- Bad: one guy replied saying: "well I don't care if all the other owners were dumb enough to accept these materials, I'm not paying till you change them all"

Treating the workers:
- Good: one guy shock hands with all the construction workers and at the end apologized to them if he have taken some of their time during the inspection.
- Bad: one guy told one of the workers: hey, stop what you are doing and leave the house, and he asked the construction manager to take all the workers to wait outside (in the sun) during his inspection (which lasted a little bit over an hour).

I can go on and on but these are just few examples of how people can be so different.

It makes me wonder, those owners must be dealing with many companies and have several properties, so how do they view us (or view me). Sometimes it's easy when you get a pat in the shoulder and a "great job" said to you, or maybe get an email that says that. However, most of the time, people don't show that.

I think giving a little bit of time and thought while doing your work (which is not a very hard thing to do), gives you some comfort that at least other people appreciate you and know that your better than most of the other people they have dealt with.


Let us all make that small extra effort to be better than "most" people ;)

(or you can follow what this poster says) xD

A man I admired

I was with one of my friends who is working in a big residential project.

It was a day where one of the units owner is coming to check his house for final touches before the handover.
Neither I nor my friend have seen the owner. We just knew he is a wealthy businessman from Jordan. I expected to see a guy with an Armani suit, long hair styled with lots of gel.


When the guy came, we were all shocked. We saw a guy with a slightly-over-average beard wearing a normal short jalabiya (Arabic dress men wear in Jordan) and a simple red cap. We greeted each other and exchanged names. He was walking around the house and admiring the finishes, the material used and the design. All the workers there were appraised for their work. He was always smiling and had a simple, very polite way of talking to everyone. Even when there were some obvious flaws, he asked the supervisor to correct them without showing any sign of ingratitude or un-satisfaction.


Just when I thought I can’t admire him more, I was proven wrong. He was discussing the rental agreement (that his house will be rented by a hotel for 11 months, and he’ll be using it for 1 month). The agreement states that when the hotel rents the room for him, he gets 60% of the profit and the hotel gets 40%. He then asked an interesting question: “will these 60% applies only to the room charges? Or will I also get profit from the food and beverages (F&B) the guests order? “

Now I thought that he asked because if the profit includes the F&B, he’ll make more profit. It turns out; he doesn’t want to get profit from the F&B because he doesn’t want to make profit if the guests orders alcohol or pork. Then I admired him even more for having such way of thinking =)



God bless him, his family and may we have more people like him.


End of Blog entry.

Why Dubai??

wow been a long time since I last posted.

and while checking other people's blogs, i though of posting something.

but what???

hmmmmmm

Cars! (i soooo saw that coming)

no I'm actually going to talk in general about why people go to Dubai for shopping.

there are many reasons, but for me, they can be included in these points:
- Prices of goods (unfortunately that's not always the case these days)
- availability of goods (big time)
- variety of options.
- DESCENT malls and shops.

sometimes I wounder why we dont have some of the goods that are sold in Dubai, even though the demand for them is high here.

Both City Centers here (Muscat & Qurm) get soooo crowded during the weekend, couple of extra malls will surely make profit if they open.

I Cant wait for the new malls to open, specially Muscat Grand Mall (because it's goin to be big and close to home)



===================================

ok since i'm talking about Dubai, i'm going to represent a counter argument by giving an example of a trip to dubai, a FAILURE trip if i may say.

I went with my brothers to Dubai for 2 reasons:
- get myself new tires
- Get my bro's Audi TT from the garage it's getting fixed at.

I checked around 7 tires shops, they were either closed or didnt have the tires i wanted -__-
In the end, i found the tires at the dealer, but for a price that needs at least 2 months' salaries =)

my bro went to get his car and went into a huge storm of switching from place to place, everyone blaming the other and nobody knows what's its problem.
I call it: "The curious case of Ayz's TT" -__-

and throughout this Dubai trip, my shirt was stolen at Wild Wadi (who the hell steals a sweaty shirt??) and I lost my new Ray Ban shades that i got from my father =(

BAD trip indeed.


End of blog entry ...

My 1st lecture!

I gave my 1st lecture :D

Date: May 6th, 10 am
students: CEO, COO, Marketing manager.
Subject: Simple interest, compound interest, and their calculations.

the lecture lasted for around 45 mins, and included:
- introduction to interest: definition and history.
- simple interest: definition and calculations.
- compound interest: definition and calculations.

I was nervous at the beginning, you know when you feel like: "SHITT! I cant remember all the slides! the presentation is not set well! is my zipper open??!! (oh wait im wearing a dishdasha)


but as soon as i started talking, everything was going as planned ;)

the above post is not that interesting, what was important to me is the feedback i got from the students :P

since it's I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E for the CEO to compliment me in my face, he just said: well done Amarant, good lecture"

BUT (and it's A BIG HUGE BUT, kinda like the kung fu panda butt)



Oops, BACK TO TOPIC:


our marketing manager came to me after the lecture and told me what the CEO told her after the lecture, and here it is:

" I was surprised, the lecture was really good and Amarant went way above my expectations. He is smart (mashallah) and he knows what he's doing, I cant wait for his next lecture"


it was a nice start of the coming weekend =D


end of blog entry.

I Really don’t understand Mexicans.

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009: Officially the worst day I ever had at work (yet).

A day before, the CEO asked me for some numbers to be submitted, and I did my analysis, calculations, got him the numbers, and I also gave him the formula on how to get the numbers next time.
This was his reply: Great job Amarant! More than what I expected, and the numbers now explain the analysis ;)

His words lifted me up a little.


The next day (May 5th):
CEO calls me to his office, and gave me the longest, rudest lecture I have ever got during my working life!

It seems he was upset for some reason, because whatever he was saying, was not making sense at all (he does that when he’s upset).

- He mentioned the days that I didn’t stay late in the office (which are few), and forgot how many weekends/extra hours I have spent in the office.

- He used one example of me not doing my work, and forgot, that SINGLE analysis was not done because they forgot to bring me the data I had to work on (even though I told him it was not my mistake, laken la 7ayat lee man tunadi) he was not listening.

- He read an email I sent him 4 times asking me to find my mistake, and in that 3 pages email, my ONLY mistake is that I wrote “we should” instead of “should we”! WTH?? (Even though I got positive responses from the directors in Dubai).


I can’t really write all what he said, but here are 2 quotes from his lecture:

“If any employee gets laid off from this company, I want YOU to feel guilty, because you should!”

“Please, never again tell me that you were sick, because here’s something you should know, I DON’T CARE! I want work done whenever I want to!”


I don’t know if he did what he did to motivate me, but it was wrong, rude, inappropriate, and defiantly had the opposite effect. I couldn’t work for the next couple of hours as I was completely in a shock, felt so demotivated and not in a mood to work at all. The rest of my day was crappy because I was still affected by what happened and couldn’t take my mind off it.

Anyway, don’t want to bore you all with the details of that horrible day, but Alhamdulilah things were better later on.


End of Blog Entry.

THE new office

Finally!

we've been hearing about this office for god knows how long.

Here are the Advantages and disadvantages of the new office:

ADVANTAGES:
- I GOT MY OWN OFFICE! with a nice desk, cupboard, and my OWN A/C.
- Better Location.
- Better view.
- It has the office feel (not working in a villa anymore)
- Moooooore cars parking.
- 1 floor less than the old office =P

DISADVANTAGES:
- Less Rooms and less toilets (aham shay el toilets).
- The parking is not shaded.
- Smaller kitchen (no more birthday parties).
- It has the office feel (yes this is an advantage and a disadvantage).
- Still no wireless internet connection.
- No "afternoon-nap" room.


I will start bringing my camera to take pictures of cars crossing the red light xD

Is it the Evil eye??

Yes i do believe in 7asad (the Envy/Evil eye) but i'm not the kind that would relate anything bad happening to me to the envy eye. (Some people do)



here is what happened to me in the past 2 weeks: I got pretty good comments on my baby Roxy couple of times in those 2 weeks.


but what happened right after these comments? here it goes:
1. I hit another car's rim slightly, which resulted in a small dent in my front bumper =(

2. For some reason, my car started hitting every road bump i go over (and I'm sure it's not the lowering springs since my car was going through those bumps smoothly a month ago. Something is wrong under the car)

3. I hit a small side walk and my rear left rim got a scratch.

4. friday morning, the construction workers on our house roof spilled some LIQUID CEMENT on my Roxy!!!!!! WTH??!!!! :@ :@


I cant believe all of that happened in such a short period, I'm sooo pissed off right now, will take Roxy to get poilished tomorrow, then dropping her at the service center to check what's wrong under.

Is it the Envy eye? maybe yes, maybe no, but i hate all of this ...


End of Blog Entry.

Devilish Me

I found out a side of me i never knew it existed.


Yesterday at work something really bad happened and pissed me off BIG TIME.

I was not angry at anybody, I was just angry at the whole situation.

I left work, went home really pissed, and i was so close to get into 2 accidents on the way...

I did stuff I never knew i would ever do (that includes yelling at people who has nothing to do with work,hit a tree so hard and so many time i let my hands bleed, and walking for around 5 km with no idea where i'm heading).

a simple way of explaining it is: I became someone else that i dont know, and couldnt control ...

the "Devilish me" if I may say...

i got a call from one of the guys at work explaining stuff to me and promising me that things will get fixed tomorrow.

now this is the normal me talking, Devilish me doesnt even know how to blog =p


-----

the Lyrics of this AMAZING song by 3 days grace: "Animal i have become" are PERFECT to talk about me yesterday ;)

I can't escape this hell
So many times i've tried
But i'm still caged inside
Somebody get me through this nightmare
I can't control myself

So what if you can see the dark inside of me
No one will ever change this animal I have become
Help me believe it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal


I can't escape myself
So many times i've lied
But there's still rage inside
Somebody get me through this nightmare
I can't control myself


Somebody wake me from this nightmare
I can't escape this hell...


End of Blog Entry...

My Silver Jubilee

This post is kind of late :P

I completed 25 years of my life last tuesday (wow i feel old), and it was a really nice experience.

here how it went:

- 2 days before my actual birthday, i started getting birthday wishes from some of my friends(thank you facebook -__-).

- on the night before my birthday, ppl were giving me wishes throughout facebook, MSN, and a thread was opened on ES (thanks MissKindy!) :D

- some of my friends called me at EXACTLY at 12 am (that's so sweet, they didnt sleep till they wished me a happy birthday) =D

- got few texts from my friends/cousins.

- I had a nice lunch with one of my friends (which wasnt about my birthday but he just got lucky xD)

- after lunch, i went back to work, and found out that the employees organized a SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!! :O
that was shocking, everyone was there, even the CEO.
and the cake was SO YUMMY (Thanks Maryam).

- I left work, went home, and there i had another birthday cake made by my friend.
I shared the cake with my brothers and cousins, and it was REALLY REALLY great (Thanks kaza) =D

- i had dinner with my brothers and cousins in b+f in Bareeq Al Shatti.
and my bro told them it was my birthday, so the staff brought some chocolate pudding with vanilla ice cream, and sang "happy birthday" for me, GOD it was embaressing as everyone was looking at me -__-.

- i had a nice BOSS wallet and key chain from my Friend =D

and that's it, went to sleep early as i was going to Sohar the next day.


- my parents wished me a happy birthday 4 days later -__-


here are some "cropped" pics from the party at work :P



















end of blog entry...

Envy?? Hatered?? or some people just like being a**holes??

this happened around 3 weeks ago.

i parked my car in front of our house coming from work, and entered the house.

around 2 hours later, my bro comes rushing in asking:" Amarant!!!! What happened to your plate number???!!!!"

and I was: huh??? What?? :S

i went out, and this is what i saw:







































Some A**hole took off my number plate, and threw it in front of the car!!!! WTH??!!!!!


now i wanted to believe that the number plate fell by itself, but i'm sure it didnt, for these reasons:
- Whenever I park my car, I ALWAYS check it, have a last look at it before walking away, and the number plate was there when i left it this time.

- The screws in the number plate were tilted, which shows that there was some force trying to take off the number plate, which tilted the screws during the process.

- There were few scratches and big holes in the front bumper, which resulted from the number plate being moved left and right, in order to take it off...

I tried hard to figure out what could be the reason for someone to do such thing,,,, but i really couldnt find out...


ma aqool ella: la illah ella allah, mohammad rasool allah, wa la 7awl wala qowwa ella be allah.

anyway, looking at the damage with my bro, we figured out what would be the next mod for Roxy ;)


End of blog entry

Save Gaza

it's really horrible and sad. What happened in Ghaza 2 days ago.

i wish i can express my feelings in words, but i cant.

i have all those deep feelings of sarrow, seeing all these innocent people dead.

Allah be with them, and may he take revenge from the Evil.

Going to leave you with the design below (not by me), please spread it around.

the Devil holds a remote

Story happened few days ago.

My Young sis praciticed her favorite hobby: Spilling stuff.

she spilled some juice on the table, remote controller, and on the floor.

we tried to minimize the damage as much as we could, and we dried everyhing out.

few moments later, the remote started working on its own!!!!

and guess what?? the remote was pressing the number "6" frequently!

it kept changing channels between: 6, 66 and 666 :-

No other button would work, and we cant stop the 6 from being "pressed by Satan"



ok so this is silly, it's just some spilled juice that messed up the electrical circuit.

but if i were in a superstecious Family, we would've probably burnt the remote =)

Enemies as partners

this also car material, but interesting and understandable to everyone =P

Sooooooooooooo all the news these days are about Big Mergers, aquisitions, joint ventures between Auto Giants...

im not very updated with these news as i look at the cars more than the corporations...

but it's really interesting, how can the biggest enemies, be partners,,,, business world is such a tough world that forces long-time Rivals to be friends (or let's keep it as partners)

- GM and Chrysler!!! what a shock, i've never seen a single car released from one of these 2 companies, that didnt have a competitor from the other, now there are some Rumors that they might work together.

- BMW and Mercedes: now this shocked me even more!!! Being a BMW fan, never thought that they would think of partnering with Mercedes!!!

When the Rumor was 1st out, everyone expected BMW to use Mercedes's big V12 engines, and Mercedes to use BMW's mini engines....
But the 1st sign was kinda different, BMW is gonna give Mercedes it's newly Devloped V12 to use (for which car? i dont know)


i must say that this time is business time, and you have to do what you need to do to survive.


bottom line: i still think each car will have its own charecter, even if it uses engine, base, transmission from another company...
That's why i care about the cars, not the corporations ;)

End of Blog entry

Deja Vu

inspired by C-chan's post...

this post includes:
- Deja Vu definition
- Deja Vu interpretations
- Deja Vu drama in our family

----------------------------------------------------

Definition:

Deja Vu is a well-known phenomena and in a simple way, it's the feeling that you have seen something before when you really havent.

----------------------------------------------------

Interpretations:

here are 2 interpretations of the phenomena:

- the Baby sees its whole life infront of it before it was born...

- there's a certain area in the brain that links past events to sight, so it tells you if you have seen this before.
sometimes that area miss-functions and tells you: you have seen this before, even though in Reality, you havent...


-------------------------------------------

Drama:

for some wierd reason, my father and uncles dont believe in Deja Vu. They say that we "think" it's there cuz we watch too much movies...

i was surprised cuz i thought everyone experiences it.

they would make fun of us, the young people, for believing it.

anyway once, they asked: oh what's that thing you always have? Deja Vu ??
my Cuzn replied: yah it's something you foget about when you are older than 40 years old!

haha they werent very happy with that xD
-------------------------------------------------------------

End of blog entry ...

Doing good at work? or keep your friends?

(names in Blog are changes to keep the privacy of the people involved)

Charecters:
- Me
- jack: CEO
- nick: My boss
- Ron: Vice president of operations
- Mike: CEO of financial services

the Drama happened in our company last week.

Nick is my boss, he taught me ALOT, had a big part in making me who i am now.
He went to the U.S to solve some family problems.

a Rumor was out saying he's not coming back, so i went to check with the CEO, Jack, and had this conversation:

- Me: sir when is Nick coming back?

- Jack: we will figure it out later, why asking?

- Me: cuz i need him.

- Jack: why need him?

- Me: cuz he's my teacher

- Jack: i can be your teacher.

- Jack: Amarant, i have been looking at your work and analysis, your doing a really good job, i dont think we need Nick anymore.

- Me: !!!!!!!!!!!!!! =O

- Me: Sir when we start to do big stuff, im gonna need him!

- Jack: Big stuff are just small stuff gathered, if you can handle small, you can handle big.

- Me: i still think we need Nick back

- Jack (pissed off): Do you know where i got my Finance degree?!

- Me: yes sir, Harvard

- Jack: you think i cant handle this?!

- Me: no i didnt say that.

- Jack: and your work is really good, so we can work this out, take Nick out of your mind.

(left his office)

----

Today: Ron came from Dubai, when he saw me he was really happy and said: "ohhhhhhhhh Amarant we heard alot about you, the company has given birth to an astonishing Financial Analyst!"

"Mike come meet Amarant, he's the one Jack was talking about, the future of the company's financial development!"

I did feel flattered, and it's good to be appreciated, by the top people of the company,

BUT,

I used the knowledge i got from Nick, to be this good, and this made Jack thinks we dont need him anymore.

me being good at my job made me loose my boss, my teacher, my friend.

is feeling guilty a normal thing??

Kahlijis and thier "oil money"

A post in Muggle's blog inspired me to post this, funny comments and silly ones, about the Western perception of us khalijis and our "money"

check this out:

My bro in UK, Leeds: (he always makes fun of these perceptions)
- a British guy asked my bro: is it true that behind each khaliji house there's an oil well ???
my bro answered: not true, we have an oil well behind our house, but Sulaiman (his friend) has 2 wells, since they live in a mountain ...

- he tells them that he didnt buy a ferrari, but a GMC, cuz it consumes much petrol (some believed him)


Car Forums:
- a race between an Audi R8 and a corvette Z06: a member commented: "that's what arabs do when we pay our money for thier oil"

- a Qatari guy was complaining that BMW prices are very high these days, an american guy responded: "what's wrong?? oil isnt paying you??"

- I posted a pic of my car in my uncle house, a guy commented: "ok so we've seen the BMW, where do you hide your ferraris and Lambos?? cuz it's hard to believe that a guy living in this house owns a normal 320i"

- I posted a pic of my car, with a minor accident, a guy commented: "no need to fix it, just buy another one and send me this one as a gift"


Random western comment:
- "is it true that Islam approved multi-marriages cuz it want its people to spend thier money on wives, which is better than playing around with it??"

Weekly Update

Ok it's been a while since i posted here, let me see if there was anything interesting that happened in the past week.

- Cars: My bro installed AWE downpipe in his Turbo Bunny, sounds much meaner now, and the (naq3a) is louder, Thumbs up mike.

- Food: Ramadan with its many many meals, i had a nice chocolate cake for su7oor today.

- Work: was an "ok" week, finally did my presentation on wednesday, but the GM talked more than i did -_-

- Family: yesterday was a family gathering at home, was nice till an electric fuse "naqa3" and part of the house electricity went off.

- Life: my Gym subscribtion ended on 9/11, i tried to convince them i wasnt part of the attack on the WTC but they didnt believe me.


that's all Folks !