Mukhaizna, Oman pt.5 - The Daily Grind

Hey All,

Well, let me tell you about my daily grind…..

We work from 6 AM to about 6 PM.  If it wasn’t bad enough that we work 12 hour days, the 7 day work week helps to drag thing on.  Yup, you read it right, we work every day of the week for 28 days straight.  I know some of you are saying “Poor Baby” and playing the violin for me.   I thank you, lol.  Funny thing about the culture here, their weekend is our Thursday and Friday.  Friday is their Sabbath and in town, nobody works.  Except for the usual service industry types. 

The usual day starts at about 4:30-ish.  I do not have an alarm clock but I am using my internal clock to get up at around 4:15 or so.  It has been working and isn’t too different from home as that’s the time my alarm starts going off.

Then its breakfast (I will fill you in on the food later) and our team meeting at 6.  We get and give status updates and go to the office.  About the office.  Apparently we had high jacked the Safety Dept’s office and they wanted it back.  WTF, they only use it 2 days a month but since no one wants to piss of the cry baby safety folks, we got evicted.  Maybe we should have offered to arm wrestle for it.  We would have the advantage as we haven’t found any Camel Spiders and I think Ed was taking ‘Roids in anticipation of his Camel Spider Death match.  I mean his arms are huge.

Back to the office.  We got relocated to the Instrument Dept’s offices and it is much smaller than the old one.  On a good note, it reminds me of the beloved “sweatshop” I normally work out of in Kern County.  They said we will be relocated to the previous building when the new building is finished and all of the “Mucky Mucks” claim jump the offices there.  That will be in about 2 weeks.

Then it’s lunch at around 11:30 and I go home for a nap until 1 PM.  Ha!  Yup, we were told that lunch is from 11:20 to 1:00 because that’s when everybody hides out.  Oh well, when in Rome….

I am getting quite fond of the naps but I think my boss will definitely put his foot down if I try to do it when I get home.  Maybe I’ll present it as a “Cultural Diversity” topic (that’s something Chevron encourages).

Then it’s back to work at about 1:30 to 2-ish (remember, no alarm clock) and work until about 6.  Then it is off to dinner and then I usually head back to the office and do the email thing.  I also use the cover of darkness to do some foraging.  Well, that does sound a bit more sinister than it really is.  All the doors have electronic locks to keep the Bedouins out but I have a card that lets me in to all of them.  Every building has this little snack / tea /coffee room that has cabinets and a refrigerator full of goodies.   Sodas, cookies, crackers and all.   That’s where they keep the bottled water too.  And for those of you who are concerned, I am keeping hydrated.  Funny thing about the bottled water, it only comes in 1.5 liter (metric system again) bottles.  It is so hot that if you have a bottle that is frozen solid and leave it near a window in the morning, it is totally defrosted in about an hour.

 Bedtime is about 9-ish.