The Accelerate HR Blog
24 hours from Bahrain (Sat Dec 08 2007)
It was 1991. I'd been away from the Arab world for 5 years, but I thought I knew it pretty well.
But in the first meeting, I realized how much I'd forgotten. You're making a pitch and you get 5 words in - then the phone rings. The meeting stops for the call. So you recap and try to pick up the thread again, and you're just coming to the point when someone walks straight in through the open door, and with a smile to you, wants to know why the car that's just been delivered to him is white not gold. You sit there smiling politely, but your blood is boiling and your pulse is racing. Slow down! Slow down! Take your time.
Just recently, I've been what someone recently called a 'Time Lord'. No meetings. No office. No interruptions. Just sitting at home working on Accelerate HR. Not even a phone call to disturb from one day to the next. It's a rare and privileged position.
But the last 24 hours has brought the reality of life in the Gulf flooding back in.
It was time to train the team in Abu Dhabi. It's just a short flight away from Bahrain, less than an hour. So I rolled up to the airport at 9 last night for the 11 night-flight and joined a queue of 4 at the check-in. 45 minutes later I was still in a queue of 4, and the check-in clerk was sitting on another desk dealing with a problem there. Three porters and 2 supervisors were standing watching.
I finally reached the desk. Half an hour till the flight. 'Did you know sir that the flight's been delayed?' Well, how should I have known really since the board said 'On Time'?
'How long?'
'Till three tomorrow morning.' She looked at me quizzically. OK I give up. I'll message the client and tell them we'll do it tomorrow. It's the bukra - tomorrow - mentality. Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow.
Then from another check-in desk someone singles me out and calls across. 'You want to go with KLM, sir?'
'When?'
'Right now. Same time as your original flight-plan'
'OK.'
So one hour later I'm flying with KLM. Curious route. It goes from Bahrain to Abu Dhabi, then back over Bahrain to Amsterdam.
And I've got that nightmare passenger next to me. American. Gets on the plane, and a propos of nothing tells me - loud enough for everyone to hear 5 seats away - about all the great films he's seen recently with planes crashing. 'Well if your time has come, your time has come ... it's a lot safer than driving anyway'.
Thanks.
And then for our forty minutes in the air, he drowns out the plane's engines with his snoring. Everyone's looking and giving furtive little grins, but we're all much too polite to prod him.
So the plane arrives in Abu Dhabi. I'm an hour later than I should be and with the time difference, it's 2 in the morning. There's no-one there to meet me. And nobody mentioned where I'm supposed to be staying. Do I call? It's not going to make me popular. What the hell? I've got work to do. The city's an hour's drive. Whereas the site is just a few minutes away. I'll stay here.
The airport's deserted. The seat's are fairly comfortable. I work for a couple of hours, then get two hours of patchy sleep.
I wander outside as dawn breaks, and it's magical. A thin blood-red streak behind the terminal and the pepper-pot/mosque shaped control tower. The deep azure of the retreating night sky with the morning star standing proud. And hanging in between the richness of the red and the richness of the blue, the thinnest slice of the moon, lying on its back as I've only really seen it do in the Arab world. No wonder the crescent moon inspires such awe here and is so closely related with the religion.
And eventually, I get to the office. And we start with the inquisition of the missing driver.
'What happened?
'I was there, sir.'
'Where were you?'
'In the airport.'
My useful contribution: 'Which airport - Abu Dhabi or Dubai?'
He grins at the stupid joke.
It wasn't even that funny.'Yes but where exactly were you in the airport?'
'Where the drivers were. Look, this was my sign.'
Since I reached the ripe old age of 100 my eyesight's been terrible, but even I couldn't have missed the jolly blue ALAN MILES with the wrong flight number on it.
'How long did you wait?'
'Till 4.30, sir'
'And were there lots of other people there at 3?'
'Yes, many people sir.'
He smiles inanely. He knows he's been caught out.
His boss and I look at each other and shrug. Then someone comes in to moan about the white car that's just been delivered to him and we all have a good moan about customer service in Abu Dhabi. Our driver takes advantage of the diversion, and literally melts out of sight.
Tonight, I was delighted to find he'd been assigned to drive me back to the airport for the return flight.
'I am very sorry, sir.'
'Listen, it wasn't really a problem that you didn't wait when you saw my flight wasn't coming. That's understandable. But why did you have to tell us that you were there waiting when you weren't? That's why we were angry.'
'Nobody told me your flight wasn't coming, sir.'
He's clinging on to the lie like a limpet.
'Next time why don't you just tell us the truth? Then we wouldn't have been angry. I know you weren't there because nobody was there. Will you do that for me next time? Tell the truth?'
'Yes sir.'
'And stop calling me sir.'
The last sentence is a little bit of poetic license. I didn't say it. But I should have.
And that's the real problem we have here. The driver wasn't a local Arab, but an expat who's probably not been here very long. He's learnt all the subservience ropes already. Never admit you might be wrong. Cover your arse. Never give offence. Never volunteer information. Never ever argue. Smile. A. Lot.
Now do you understand why the region has so few first-class businesses, why you've never seen a product labeled 'Made with pride in the Gulf'. Or even just 'Made in the Gulf'?
Oh, I should tell you about the training It was very good, sirs and madams. Very good. There were many people ...