Work

January 22, 2008 | Filed Under Main |

I was kind of nervous going to work this morning. I haven’t worked for three straight weeks, and THAT hasn’t happened since I was in my early 20’s. I’ve rarely had two weeks off in the time since. Not that I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth, mind you. It was very relaxing to do nothing for a while. Still – doing the jacket and tie thing always makes me feel edgy…

Again I was walked around and introduced to people whose names I will not remember tomorrow. This is especially true when you have never heard these particular names before in your life. At my old job, most people adopted first names: John, Sharon, Alex, etc. Not here. It will take some time… which I have.

Then I had to start the next visa process. This one is for residency and it – again – requires a blood test and a chest x-ray. Very different experience from Dubai. There I went to a small doctor’s office to have the work done. Here – I was driven to some sort of medical compound with another guy. At one end of the compound, we were rushed to the front of the line with our passports and paperwork, stamped and shown to another corridor to stand in a short line to have some blood taken. It took mere minutes and from the rows of blood filled test tubes on the table, I can easily imagine that they processed 700 of us today alone. Then we were whisked to the other side of the compound, passing a sign near one building that said “Maternity Plant” (I assume that is a loose translation…). Our driver was right behind a bus load of young men from the Philippines. The driver was our guide through the hallways, our passports in hand, speaking the language and pushing through lines. The company is our sponsor and our sponsor makes sure we make it through the processing. The next place – like the one before – was less a medical facility than a rundown DMV office in a rural town. We all got our passports stamped again, got more paperwork, and filed to a back area. We took off our shirts (and my tie and my suit jacket) and stood in line waiting to be x-rayed – the ten men from the Philippines, my sudden companion (also from the Philippines) and this old, white guy(me). Five minutes later, shirts on and passports returned, we were whisked back to the office.

I am finally in a different country.

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6 comments so far
  1. Mad Elf January 23, 2008 10:39 am

    Welcome back to being an honest man. Now remember Carl Friday January 25th is Robert Burns Day. Scotch is mandatory followed by a nice steaming plate of sheep offal, potatoes and turnips washed down with a malty Scotch Ale. I usually pass on the solid stuff preferring to sustain myself on propery fermented and/or distilled barley based foods…

  2. mburma January 23, 2008 10:48 am

    Normally, I would take you up on such a suggestion. However, since my new home is dry as a bone, I’ll have to use my imagination. People can send me pictures of alcohol, if they wish…

  3. Mad Elf January 23, 2008 1:00 pm

    Cool - Beer Porn.

    Well the header on my crude blog has a nice shot of Kwak in its house glass. Also some semi-amusing banter about haggis and Budweiser.

    http://musingsonmalt.blogspot.com/

  4. Ray Waldron January 23, 2008 7:38 pm

    Finally at work! Welcome back to the world of, well,……..work! Your experience of entry to a new country reads like a drawn out Ellis Island.

    The Giants win was dramatic and heart stopping. Thankfully their kicker, Lawrence Tynes, nailed it on the third try. New York would not have been kind to him had he missed.

    What does one do for fun in Kuwait? I hear it is dry so the pub scene is out. Lots of time for work I suppose!

  5. Nattarg January 24, 2008 7:20 pm

    Now that you have landed, work on getting an AIM or IChat account, so that you can video call home, ET.

    We can easily do an eight hour time difference on Weekends.

    Glad you made it through purgatory, hopes are it is more heaven than hell from here on out.

  6. mburma January 25, 2008 12:23 am

    Right now I do Skype back home. I’m not sure if the others will work. For one - I have an abyssmal connection at this hotel. Snail mail is faster. Two - these governments have a tendency to block website they don’t like. In Dubai, I couldn’t access the Skype website!