If I throw up, will you hold my hair?

Yeah, it's like that.

I am in the middle of a low-level depression; a funk if you will. It usually doesn’t last long with me, but it is hitting me as odd that not only friends, but colleagues have noticed it. Friends who “usually wouldn’t say anything” have started saying things. I don’t really feel so depressed, but I guess I’m just not myself and things are bothering me on several different fronts; which is making the little things piss me off even more.

So, as part of stress therapy, I spent the day yesterday on my friend’s boat (photo by moi). Incase you don’t know me or my blog, I love the sea in Kuwait equally as much as the desert. My friend bought a new boat; it is 86 feet long and I can’t even imagine how much fuel it sucks up. 6 of us went fishing. Ok, they fished; I sat around. It was humid out, but I still had a great time. It was so peaceful and relaxing. He has called me a lot of times in the past year to go out with him, his brothers, and friends, but I always say no (partially because of previous drunken moonings on their part which gave me nightmares). I said no this time too, but then I called him right back and went. I’m so glad I did. I should go out with them more often. They are always fun and make me feel energized. Sometimes I forget to remember what truly great friends I have (despite the moonings).

Which leads me to another wonderful friend, Bunny… (he doesn't moon. He isn't the mooning type. In fact, I believe that just the mention of his name associated with mooning will greatly disturb him). He has been so helpful and kind and I’ve been in such a crap mood that I have bitten off his head several times lately (sorta like what I do to chocolate bunnies around Easter time). Me sorry. Je t’adore.

I got my sea and city bases covered this weekend, but not the desert. Bu Merdas has been out hunting gerbils (or whatever the f he does up in the desert – alone – with men). I didn’t get to Kabd and I am on an official Bu Merdas strike now regardless. EMBARGO ON!

So Not Zain…. I owed Zain a nice chunkachange, so as soon as my salary went into my account, I got online and paid them… only in my haste (pre-coffee and blondeness), I incorrectly paid it to a wrong number (one digit off). (The frickin extra 9 number is confusing me! Shut up!) Since September 30th, ten minutes after I made the mistake, I have been trying to get the problem resolved. Their customer service guys are soooooooooooooooo nice, but about as useful as tits on a bull. Don’t make promises you can’t deliver – that’s all I’m sayin. I finally called Saad Al-Barrak’s (Director General of Zain) office because no one in the entire organization seemed to know the extension to their Finance Department. I have discovered that if you are nice to the secretaries, you can usually get things resolved in a nanosecond. tee hee. Which reminds me, I gotta send her flowers.... (sounds of asses being kissed).

My friend came to visit last night. She works for a local company where they are not only implementing a fingerprint system for time and attendance, but also installing a camera to go with it (I told her about one of the many uses of Vaseline; nicely covers camera lenses and it is indistinguishable). So basically, the only thing that is left is a retina scan. I know of a company that installed a fingerprint machine to provide “discipline” to their management. Well, if a manager isn’t doing his/her job – terminate them (hopefully after productive communication). You have to trust the people who work for you; if not, why do they work for you to begin with? This has been stuck in my craw lately about local companies. People have choices and demoralizing employees will only develop a lack of trust and then a lack of productivity. If you treat your employees well, they will do anything for you (if you don't, some of them may spit in your tea; personally, I prefer eyedrops). It is the old “you get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar” adage. I watched a documentary on a successful US company a long time ago and I love the quote that the CEO made, "Every night at 5 pm, I watch as 95% of my company's assets drive through the front gates." Under a similar belief: I downloaded a presentation that Saad Al-Barrak gave some time ago on his HR philosophy titled, “HR - The Sole Sustainable Competitive Advantage.” It is an old presentation and not formatted very well, but provides a good insight into their strategy. Basically, it states that a company’s greatest assets are their employees. I believe that Zain has proven that it is a methodology that works (although perhaps some of their employees still need better training and others need to learn to look at an internal phone directory instead of saying, “Wallah ma’adri” when they don’t know how to answer a question). At least all of the people I have ever spoken to who work for Zain have always said that they love their jobs. That is much more than I can say for other sweatshops and workhouses 'round here. Bada BING.

On a complimentary note, "The Friday Times" had a lot of really good articles this weekend. Way to go, dudes. Someone FINALLY wrote a story about earthquakes in Kuwait. Have you noticed that often the only time that you hear about an earthquake in Kuwait is 5 days later when one of your friends sends you a link to somewhere like CNN from Europe? I've been here and felt tremors and when I tell people, they give me that, "Oh my God, not you and your wacky theories again!" (Which, by my own admission, is usually justified.) This is really funny, but one time, I was praying (it could happen! Shut UP!) for something, and my building started to shake. I actually thought it was the Desert-Girl-to-God connection that was making things move. I thought maybe I should pray more often cause it was cool (kinda "biblical" if I may), but then I found out that it was an earthquake several days later. (And as they say, God always answers, but sometimes the answer is NO! LOL) There was also a rather odd (we like weird) article in the local section, called, "The Cheating Kind; To use the excuse that it's in men's nature to cheat - now that's totally lame. They should say, men are a**holes by nature. That would make more sense." No, once again, je ne shit you pas - this was actually the byline - in print. I believe it is the FIRST time I have ever seen "a**holes" appear in print in a daily. We certainly are MAVERICKS in this country, aren't we?! It is quite an insightful little diddy about cheating in Kuwait. Me likes that someone is TALKING about it (and it isn't me).

Have you ever just felt like everything around you is going to shit and you might as well sit at your desk and write a blog post and make yourself giggle? Yeah, that happened to me today too.