When Life Sometimes Feels Like Fiction

Last night, H and I went for drinks with a few of H's colleagues.  Sometimes I wonder where the hell I am, not just geographically speaking.

My first pint of beer was accompanied by the following conversation:

B, "I'm going to Duri* (Indonesia) for days off to visit my boyfriend but he'll be working."

Me, "What is there to do there?"

R, "Drink cheap beer and hire prostitutes."

B, "Well, the prostitutes won't do me much good." (B's a woman)

R, "But you can hire them to do things for you, like paint your toenails."

*Duri is an oil town in Indonesia in the middle of nowhere.  Travel sites say, "There's no reason to visit Duri except for business."  Traveling from a reasonably first world country to Duri on your time off requires real devotion.  Often outside women are viewed as unwanted "competition" by the local umm..talent.  

Next conversation (still during pint one):

Me, "Hey, T, nice to see you.  How are you?"

T, "I'm doing well, just got back from the rig a couple of days ago."

Me, "It must be nice to be back."

T, "Not really, they had great food there.  All you can eat ice cream, oysters, and one night they served kangaroo, it was incredible."

Note, T is not Australian, and honestly who would trust seafood cooked by a man with marginal hygiene that more likely than not has spent some time as a ward of her majesty's correctional institutions.  

By this point, I was in need of another pint.

R, "Have you been to a cricket match yet?"

Me, "No but I'm looking forward to experiencing that unique cultural phenomenon.  As Bill Bryson says In a Sunburned Country, in what other sport can you dress in white from head to toe and end the game just as clean as you started it?"

R, "It's great fun, you sit in your blow-up pool all day drinking overpriced beer and eating meat pies and occasionally glance over at the game."

Me, "Wait, did you say blow-up pools?"

R, "Yeah, everyone in the lawn area brings them."

(Break for me to physically close my gaping jaw.)

R, "So you heard I got transferred to Saudi Arabia?  I'm trying to figure out what I can do to be barred from entering the country.  I'm thinking that maybe I'll bring in a load of pornography."

H, "Nah, they'll just confiscate it (and be silently thanking you for providing it)."

R, "Maybe I'll get fake breasts, they won't let a lady man in."

Me, "I think a quick trip to Israel to get your passport stamped would be easier."

After a visit to the bar, for another round, we started talking about R's time in Oman when he got invited to a camel race in the middle of the desert.

H, "You know camel racing has changed a lot.  They don't have child jockeys anymore, they've been replaced by robots."

R, "Yeah, people were putting up a big fuss that all these kids were stolen and forced to work in dangerous conditions for little if any pay."

S, "The kids weren't stolen, they were bought."

H, "But now it's more of a Land Cruiser race than a camel race because all the owners all race beside their camels to control their robots with remotes and they all try to cut off and distract the other drivers to make them drop their remotes."

Where am I and is this the real world or some kind of backwards flushing toilet alternate universe?

Australia is Awesome

First thing this morning, my boss (M) and I got an urgent request to review a model. The requestor (L) came to discuss what he needed and M and I got to work. For hours we sat poring over cell after cell in a 100 gig spreadsheet looking for errors. Six hours into working without a break, L started to call. M decided to ignore it and keep working. Every 20 minutes the phone rang with the same number and then at 4:00 PM an e-mail came through from L:

Just wanted to see if you had a chance to review the model yet. I need the updated version ASAP.

Thanks,

L

M's response?

Sorry just got back from lunch. Got a little delayed with some extra rounds of beer. Opening model now.

L's response? Silence, confusion and a little bewilderment

L's not Australian, nor is he from a part of the world familiar with sarcasm. L was grateful to receive the updated model but he was not grateful enough to buy us a real round of beer or a much delayed lunch. As global as the world gets these days, some cultures still don't understand that I mean the obvious conclusion when I say the exact opposite.

Tap Twice

When H was flying cross country yesterday, he went to the restroom in the airport just prior to boarding the flight as he despises using flying port-a-potties. He told me that when he was washing his hands, he saw a condom dispenser mounted on the wall of the bathroom. He didn't really think anything of it at the time since he was not in the market for prophylactics. But a few steps out of the bathroom he got to thinking, 'who IS buying condoms at an airport?' After pondering this for a little while he actually called me to discuss the issue. This bathroom was not a public bathroom as it was after he had passed through security, so anyone using the bathroom was about to board a flight. Is the Australian Airport Authority encouraging safe rendezvous in the men's restroom ('tap' 'tap' with a wide stance in the stall)? Or perhaps they want to make sure that there aren't any children named Boeing in honor of their place of conception? Or maybe the target market for this product is gentlemen returning from the mines who are in search of some professional hourly company? Regardless of the target market, installing condom dispensers in airport bathrooms is just one more classy touch Australia brings to the party.

Lessons Learned

Today I was asked to submit a personal safety plan. I was told by my managers to read other people’s plans and cut and paste what was appropriate for me. As I was a bit bored, cough, enthusiastic, I went one step further by changing some wording and adding a couple of original ideas. My manager (M) reviewed it and popped it right back with a couple of suggestions.

1. Please list specific safety training courses you will be attending this year.

-Ok, I can do that, no problem. I can even say that this is a good suggestion.

2. Given what H does (some non-office based natural resources field work), please talk about steps you can take to influence his safe behaviors through your “new learnings” at work.

-Well, sorry, but you haven’t taught me anything new. I am well aware that I should hold the banister when ascending and descending steps and close my desk drawers when I am not looking for something in them. Moreover H undergoes his own rigorous safety training which is actually appropriate to the nature of his work. I’m sorry but I don’t consider paper cuts, dead light bulbs, open drawers, computer wires, and stairs to be worth one full week of training. Additionally, every time someone hurts themself I don’t need M to tell me the safety “learnings”. I already know not to trip over curbs (because someone was high), fall down stairs (drunk), or put my fingers into operating equipment (stupid). In other words, as H was told on his first day of work, “don’t put your finger anywhere you wouldn’t put your pecker.”

But since I am a good employee, I decided to humor M and add a few more points to my Safety Plan taken from some things H has learned in his work in more “challenging” parts of the world:

• Engage in regular conversations with H about best practices for safety at work and home
• Registering with the local embassy and learning its emergency contact numbers
• Registering for State Department Travel Advisories for regions we are living or travelling in
• Checking State Department Travel Advisories before embarking on a trip
• Maintaining appropriate levels of K&R insurance
• Memorizing country evacuation plans in case of emergency
• Maintaining an appropriate level of cash on hand for facilitating entries/exits to countries in case of emergency

Best and Regards,
Anonymous Expat

The best part? M LOVED it. Although he didn’t what K&R Insurance actually is. You learn something everyday! Don’t know? Google it. Or go to a country like Nigeria, Yemen, Iraq and Columbia and wish you had it.

Where Am I Again?

This evening, while riding the elevator to leave my office, I overheard a conversation between a man in standard Western Australian business attire (button down shirt, with nipples and chest hair showcased*, and trousers) and a woman in an extraordinarily tight sheath dress.

Random Man With VN&IHS, “Tell me again what you were wearing when you got thrown out of the pub last weekend?”

Random Woman in Extraordinarily Tight Sheath Dress, “Steel toed boots.”

Where am I again?

Currently missing: stiletto heels, designer purses, and oh wait, actual fashion.

* Nipples and chest hair seen through and over button down shirts, due to lack of wearing an undershirt, will hitherto be referred to as VN&IHS (short for visible nipples and inappropriate hair spillage).

Spare Change?

Tonight as I was walking home from work, I passed an inebriated older man asking passerby in the street for change. As I crossed the street to pass him, he approached a teenage girl and asked her for spare change. She replied, very sympathetically,

“I’m sorry sir, I don’t have any change. Why, are you hungry?”

His response? “No, I want a beer.”

And instead of responding that she was sorry she couldn’t help, she reached into her purse, pulled out her wallet, and handed him a bill. Given that in Australia, coins are used for all currency denominations below A$5, she had to have contributed at least A$5 towards the purchase of this man’s beer.

I guess in Australia, honesty can help get you drunk.

Tea for Twenty, Western Australian Style

Today I received a calendar invitation at work for morning tea to celebrate a colleague’s birthday. Great, I thought muffins, pastries, and maybe some fruit would be a great morning break from excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. So 10 o’clock rolled around and I went over to the conference room for morning tea and was greeted by a box overflowing with:



Meat Pies. At 10:00AM. Apparently I was the only person surprised to find meat pies at morning tea and I was only the only person who was not overjoyed by the overwhelming scent of meat and ketchup early in the day. As everybody else dug in, popping the fist-sized pies like they had just come off of a hard night of drinking, I stood off to the side of the room drinking my tea. And then the questions came,

“Hey, do you know what these are?” asked Colleague S.

“Umm, meat pies?”

“Exactly, have you tried one yet?”

“No, not yet, but I’ve seen them everywhere. I had a bit too much for breakfast (ignore loudly grumbling stomach). What exactly is in them?”

By this point, a few very entertained colleagues had joined in the conversation and one piped up, mouth full of pie,

“Meat, gravy, and well the rest, you don’t really want to know. They’re great though, you have to try some.”

I promised to try one later and went back to my desk where suddenly my excel spreadsheet had started to look much more appealing. And later instead of trying a meat pie, I googled it and found the following:

1. Meat pies aren’t necessarily beef pies. If the ingredient listed says meat instead of beef, the contents may include kangaroo, buffalo, camel, deer, goat, hare, rabbit, pig, or mutton. Additionally, according to Food Standards Australia New Zealand, the government body responsible for developing food standards for Australia and New Zealand, meat can also be defined as snouts, ears, tongue roots, tendons and blood vessels. So if the meat pie you purchase has “meat” as an ingredient, you could be eating a pie full of snouts and blood vessels.

2. Meat pies are so unhealthy that a former Australian government official announced at a Childhood Obesity Summit that feeding children meat pies was akin to child cruelty.

3. Australians are thought to be the world’s largest consumer of meat pies per capita. The numbers I found via Google for this suggested that each Australian consumes over 12 meat pies per year. I think this number is a bit low as I watched individuals consume 4+ pies per person over the course of twenty minutes in one day.

Apologies to my host country, but I will not be consuming any meat pies. And friends, if you come visit, you won’t find any in my freezer. But I promise to help you find some if you feel the need to try this Australian staple. Please don’t request any for morning tea though.

How to Make Work Better

Sometimes at work, you just have to create your own fun in order to improve your day. Hence the following:

1-2 heaping tablespoons of chocolate powder

1 short espresso

A dash of milk

Mix all of the above ingredients together and drink.

Another thing to improve the workday is witnessing ridiculous acts. For instance, today I noticed someone changing for a lunchtime run in his office. He closed the office door before he stripped, but seemed to forget that except for the wood door, his office consists of uncovered glass walls. Brilliant!

Sustainable Development Gone Too Far

I always laugh at energy and natural resources companies’ desire to go green in the office. It seems somewhat hypocritical that as these companies are, let’s say, altering the environment to obtain oil, gas, copper, coal, timber, iron ore, diamonds, etc., they attempt to do everything they can to minimize their impact on the environment in the office. These include:

• Eight different kinds of recycling bins (try finding an actual trash can, it’s nearly impossible)
• Recycled paper for the printers
• An immutable printer default to double-sided printing
• E-mail footers reminding you to “Think Before You Print”
• Re-usable glasses, mugs, plates, and utensils (no paper, plastic, or Styrofoam allowed)
• Lights on timers (It’s bad enough to be the last one in the office, but to be the last one in the office and have the lights go out on you really sucks.)
• Strict policies on shutting down computers at night (People walk around and check everybody’s desk and occasionally reward those who comply with a surprise gift for the morning i.e. Stubby holder with fun safety facts reminding you of things like maintaining three points of contact when ascending or descending stairs.)
• Signs posted everywhere (on recycled paper of course) reminding you to think of what you can do today to reduce your impact on the environment

That’s all fine but there is one thing that I really feel is taking sustainable development too far: restricting water flow in the bathroom. Communal bathrooms? Just say no to low flow toilets and dual flush toilets; do you really want to walk into a stall after a stranger who has decided to use the half flush button to save water?

But that’s not all because I swear the sinks at my office also have “sustainable” water flow. Anyone who has been with me at a sink, either in the kitchen or a restaurant bathroom, knows that I take a ridiculously long time to wash my hands. But it’s not my fault, I’ve been trained well. In fact, the Mayo Clinic recommends rubbing your soap-lathered hands vigorously for 20 seconds, and that is exactly what I do. But the sinks at work? They dislike my proper hand washing technique immensely. Because after a solid five seconds, the water flow either reduces to a trickle or gets really hot and scalds my hands. I am considering this to be a not so subtle way to tell me to go green with my water use. Because obviously reducing the office’s water intake is going to help counter the environmental impact of work that goes on in the field everyday. Maybe if we all skip washing our hands altogether, we can offset the damage caused by BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that could conceivably spill as much as 60,000 barrels of oil a day?

Undershirts Are For Mormons

Apparently my posting on undershirts was quite a pertinent observation. Today in a meeting at work, one of the participants, P, noted that he had a newish member in his group, an American, who started in the office about two months ago.

Another person, C, said, "Who is it? I wouldn't know him if I ran over him in my car."

P responded, "Oh, you'll notice him. He dresses like an American ...very casual...he wears those t-shirt things under his shirt."

To which I of course responded, "You mean, an UNDERSHIRT?"

So today, the undershirt conversation happened not just on this blog, but at work. And I learned that not only are undershirts considered to be a totally strange phenomenon here, but they are also considered to be wholly American. And the icing on the cake? C, who had spent some time in Utah, declared that undershirts are not only American, but that they are predominantly Mormon religious apparel. Umm, no?

So all Western Australians, please note that:

1. Undershirts are not casual. In fact, I would contest that they are significantly dressier than baring your nipples and chest hair through and over your shirt.
2. Undershirts are not American, they're worn by all nationalities, except apparently Western Australians.
3. There is a difference between long underwear and undershirts.

So tell me please, who is right?

Anonymous Expat versus most of Western Australia

Comments welcome.

Form B534

After exactly two months door-to-door, our container of belongings arrived in Perth from Doha. I want to give Australian Customs a special thank you for opening and inspecting its contents to ensure it complied with all sections of form B534. It made doing the following to comply with customs regulations worthwhile:

• Scrubbing the soles and surfaces of ~25 pairs of shoes and sneakers to get rid of all traces of dirt. Yes, the box labelled "Shoes" was opened. And no, no shoes were confiscated or subjected to a fine of >$100 for additional fumigation.
• Giving away all food items. The only items I miss are the bags of dried black beans because those are proving as elusive to find in Perth as they were in Doha which is making my attempt at home-cooked Mexican and Cuban style food more difficult.
• Giving away all of our alcohol, most of which was leftover from our pre-Ramadan (oh no the single liquor store in all of Qatar is closing for a month) shopping spree. In our defense, all hotels, the only other place in the country to get alcoholic beverages, were also not serving any for the month of Ramadan and there were rumors that the liquor store might not reopen after the holiday. Customs definitely would have found alcohol, had we kept it, and I definitely would not have wanted to pay the huge customs tax on it. Besides, our friends enjoyed the farewell gifts :)
• Giving away all of our wood items. This wasn't a big deal at all, but I am kind of missing the laundry basket for our laundry bag (currently lying on the bedroom floor) and all of the extra wood hangers with clips since I can't wear scrubs, coveralls, or jeans to work.

In all, moving between continents was a fairly painless experience. Let's hope the same holds true for future moves! Now if only collapsing and disposing of thirty empty moving boxes was proving to be as simple...

How to Dress Western Australian, Or Not

Dear Western Australian men,

Have you ever heard of these?



They’re called undershirts, made for wearing under shirts, particularly button down “dress shirts.” Please use some of your 37.5 hour work week salary to buy a few packs. Nipples and chest hair are not such a good look in the office.

Thanks,
Anonymous Expat

Speaking of inappropriate work attire, how about the following first week of work observations?

1. Yes, cycling to work is quite popular in WA. Riding the elevator up to your office in white spandex bike shorts? Perhaps not such a good choice. Thanks Man on Floor 42, but no one wants to see that much of you.


2. Running to work is another WA commuting option that I support. Continuing to wear running short shorts with built in briefs until lunch time in the office is not an idea that I like quite as much. Particularly when this option involves removing shoes and socks and walking around the office barefoot for four hours. I still don’t understand the WA love of going without shoes.


3. Pink sheer shirt with Country Western styling and stitching details, sans undershirt? First, thanks for sharing your healthy chest hair growth. Second, see above regarding undershirts. Third, umm no?


4. Overly fitted button down shirts. If your shirt is so tailored, that it’s pulling between buttons and showing your stomach or chest, you probably need a larger sized shirt. Another situation where undershirts would help.


5. Other items that have no place in business attire: feathers, sequins, embroidered unicorns, and excessive cleavage, male or female.

I would also like to do a special shout-out to the person with the Twilight calendar in her office. Semi-pornographic vampire photographs are always a great way to start your day.