It's Friday. In the Muslim world that's the core day of rest when almost everyone is off work and many go to the mosque and spend the day with their families. There's a lie in and no morning rush hour.
And yet for the last two Fridays the building site next door has chosen to begin work at 0530 as it is just getting light and has also chosen to concentrate on installing the air-con ducts. Which means steel saws, grinders and hammering on the ductwork. Some of the loudest and most penetrating noises on site at anytime.
Now there are real cultural differences between Western Europe and over here - even in the realm of noise. Apart from anything else people simply talk more loudly. And use of the horn in the car - which admittedly given the driving quality is very necessary - is hardwired in the brain and surfaces at very odd times. Including at the local shops and cafes where it is the accepted signal for staff to come outside and serve you in the car. No one leaves the comfort of their air conditioned car if they don't REALLY have to.
But steel saws, grinders and hammering at 0530 on a Friday? That's plain inconsiderate. And illegal - but complaining is hard and by the time you reach some sort of agreement with someone who can do something about it the moment has passed. For half an hour.
Still the cafe next door has some advantages beyond fine tea. Today a local police traffic patrol pulled in for their early morning break. And the grinders started up on the building site. Just as the cops were setlting down for their tea break.
The sergeant was not happy. Words were exchanged (and paperwork) with the site foreman. The grinding has stopped and the truck from the air-con company has left the site. Ahhh...peace. It's 0645 now. I'm going back to bed for some more zzzzz's. Let's hope my snoring doesn't disturb the next patrol.
21 May 2010
A message from Him/Her/It
If - and it's a big IF - I were the supreme Deity there'd be a few guidelines and a (VERY) few rules:
Rules:
1 Do nothing in my name unless you have a solid gold tablet in triplicate with my signature on it and countersigned by at least two other supreme deities from other parallel universes. And generally not even then. If fact... probably for the best just to do NOTHING in my name ever. I'm cool with that.
2 Do not deliberately hurt people or kill them.
3 If you're of the carnivore persuasion you can eat to survive. But no killing or hurting animal life for fun or sport.
4 Be prepared for smiting if I find Rule 1 being ignored.
Guidelines:
I'm omnipotent and omniscient. There is no contradiction here because I say so. OK? So no half arsed philosophising on how that works. It just does.
I do not need your protection. If people are rude to me and I'm pissed off I'll smite them myself. You are not required to do it for me. See rule two above for further guidance.
Actually I rather like dissent. It suggests you've been thinking even if you turn out to be wrong. It's why I gave you both Free Will and Brains.
Speaking of Free Will...if bad things happen it's either because you screwed up or because stuff happens in a self-organising universe like the way I designed it. It does not mean you're evil/bad or that I'm displeased. You should feel sad and probably annoyed. But do whatever you can to make it better. Or don't. Your choice.
I have commanded no particular actions and demand nothing of you beyond Rules 1-4 above. Everything is down to Free Will - including ignoring the Rules if you want to.
Some of the Churches from places like the the Middle East have rules about what you can eat and what you can't. These made some sense when you were nomads living in the desert with little water and no technology. Shrimp goes off real quick in the heat and pork is a bugger if you don't cook it properly. but these days...well just use the fridge and wash your hands carefully and heat things up properly. You'll be fine.
Btw on the subject of food. Macdonalds is nothing to do with me. You did that to yourselves though I've no idea why. Which is hard; on account of my being omniscient...
I quite like other religions but I really do not like Churches. If you were to use that big brain and the Free Will thing you might seriously consider disbanding all the churches and distributing their wealth to good causes.
If you must have Churches and priests and stuff for goodness sake let 'em marry and live lives like normal people. After all that's what they are. They don't deserve any particular reverence but they don't deserve any particular harshness either.
And invest in heating/air-conditioning for churches and padding for the seats. A lot of people who like to go to churches are old or frail or poor and deserve a bit of comfort.
And while we're on the subject of Churches...I don't have a dress code or any desire to have you mutilate yourselves for me. See Rule 1 above.
Go check out Wikipedia - that's a really cool human invention; way to go Free Will and Big Brain - and read about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And check out the "I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts" They work well for anything I've missed.
Bill & Ted's Movies had it down pretty well to. I never understood why they didn't do better. "Be Excellent to each other" pretty much covers it.
Toodles//G
Rules:
1 Do nothing in my name unless you have a solid gold tablet in triplicate with my signature on it and countersigned by at least two other supreme deities from other parallel universes. And generally not even then. If fact... probably for the best just to do NOTHING in my name ever. I'm cool with that.
2 Do not deliberately hurt people or kill them.
3 If you're of the carnivore persuasion you can eat to survive. But no killing or hurting animal life for fun or sport.
4 Be prepared for smiting if I find Rule 1 being ignored.
Guidelines:
I'm omnipotent and omniscient. There is no contradiction here because I say so. OK? So no half arsed philosophising on how that works. It just does.
I do not need your protection. If people are rude to me and I'm pissed off I'll smite them myself. You are not required to do it for me. See rule two above for further guidance.
Actually I rather like dissent. It suggests you've been thinking even if you turn out to be wrong. It's why I gave you both Free Will and Brains.
Speaking of Free Will...if bad things happen it's either because you screwed up or because stuff happens in a self-organising universe like the way I designed it. It does not mean you're evil/bad or that I'm displeased. You should feel sad and probably annoyed. But do whatever you can to make it better. Or don't. Your choice.
I have commanded no particular actions and demand nothing of you beyond Rules 1-4 above. Everything is down to Free Will - including ignoring the Rules if you want to.
Some of the Churches from places like the the Middle East have rules about what you can eat and what you can't. These made some sense when you were nomads living in the desert with little water and no technology. Shrimp goes off real quick in the heat and pork is a bugger if you don't cook it properly. but these days...well just use the fridge and wash your hands carefully and heat things up properly. You'll be fine.
Btw on the subject of food. Macdonalds is nothing to do with me. You did that to yourselves though I've no idea why. Which is hard; on account of my being omniscient...
I quite like other religions but I really do not like Churches. If you were to use that big brain and the Free Will thing you might seriously consider disbanding all the churches and distributing their wealth to good causes.
If you must have Churches and priests and stuff for goodness sake let 'em marry and live lives like normal people. After all that's what they are. They don't deserve any particular reverence but they don't deserve any particular harshness either.
And invest in heating/air-conditioning for churches and padding for the seats. A lot of people who like to go to churches are old or frail or poor and deserve a bit of comfort.
And while we're on the subject of Churches...I don't have a dress code or any desire to have you mutilate yourselves for me. See Rule 1 above.
Go check out Wikipedia - that's a really cool human invention; way to go Free Will and Big Brain - and read about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And check out the "I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts" They work well for anything I've missed.
Bill & Ted's Movies had it down pretty well to. I never understood why they didn't do better. "Be Excellent to each other" pretty much covers it.
Toodles//G
02 May 2010
On cold air and clean transport
Summer's coming. It's 0100hrs and 32C here. It hit 41C earlier today. Though the humidity hasn't kicked in yet so it's bearable still.
But you can feel people slowing down. It really does drain it out of you and you lose all inclination to move at all if possible. Or, you turn up the aircon in the apartment or office or car and live in a cold cocoon.
I was pondering this because I recently saw a demo of an air-powered car. A neat new design using multiple cylinders so that compressed air powers the first cylinder but is still somewhat compressed so it is shunted to a second and then again a third to extract the maximum power per shot of compressed air.
And what comes out the other end? Icy cold air - in this case at -10C. But that's all. Then when it ran low on fuel it stopped at a local gas station and refilled the tanks - at least with enough to get the car back to base where it would receive a safe full fill from it's very own compressor in the garage.
100km on a single charge in two smallish SCUBA sized tanks and pennies in electricity needed to refill. It's by no means a panacea. Electricity needs to be made somewhere but it is cleaner by far than battery power - no heavy metals or nasty mining waste or transporting iffy materials round the world to build the tanks and compressors - and cheaper to maintain. I've got a compressor in my garage at home in the UK that's not much off 100 yeas old. Not many batteries last that long...
I hope we can raise some investment to go to the next phase. This is a great idea that has huge potential if fully developed. Got a whizzy new and extra efficient compressor design using similar concepts to launch too.
But you can feel people slowing down. It really does drain it out of you and you lose all inclination to move at all if possible. Or, you turn up the aircon in the apartment or office or car and live in a cold cocoon.
I was pondering this because I recently saw a demo of an air-powered car. A neat new design using multiple cylinders so that compressed air powers the first cylinder but is still somewhat compressed so it is shunted to a second and then again a third to extract the maximum power per shot of compressed air.
And what comes out the other end? Icy cold air - in this case at -10C. But that's all. Then when it ran low on fuel it stopped at a local gas station and refilled the tanks - at least with enough to get the car back to base where it would receive a safe full fill from it's very own compressor in the garage.
100km on a single charge in two smallish SCUBA sized tanks and pennies in electricity needed to refill. It's by no means a panacea. Electricity needs to be made somewhere but it is cleaner by far than battery power - no heavy metals or nasty mining waste or transporting iffy materials round the world to build the tanks and compressors - and cheaper to maintain. I've got a compressor in my garage at home in the UK that's not much off 100 yeas old. Not many batteries last that long...
I hope we can raise some investment to go to the next phase. This is a great idea that has huge potential if fully developed. Got a whizzy new and extra efficient compressor design using similar concepts to launch too.
28 April 2010
Sometimes a salary looks good...
When I first came to the UAE I was strictly speaking, a salaried employee but my status and security were such that I might just as well have been a contractor. Gone on a whim and at a moment's notice with no comeback. Our labour laws here make employed expats little more than indentured servants and most would in fact be better off on freelance contracts - except the local laws make that hard and the business culture doesn't understand paying for time.
I've been back freelancing for two and a half years now. It's much tougher than in Europe and I'm barely making a long term living. I had one serious contract from a British client but the work for locals has been unsatisfying to say the least.
We have no insolvency laws here but we do have very strict laws about getting into debt and passing bad cheques. You will go to prison. And since the recession many have. So how is it clients continually get away with incredibly slow payments and invariably never paying you in full? Government and official organisations are the worst of all delaying for a year or more and then short paying. You have no practical comeback. So you build it into the price and take a lot of your money upfront. Of course that makes it harder to get work. And puts prices up since you need to allow for the costs of collections in your price.
But then what's the point of doing work and not getting paid? And no one seems ashamed. It's near universal.
It wasn't always thus. It seems wealth has made the current generation of local business people not just more stand offish but more arrogant and self centred. Perhaps that's the penalty for being in a tiny minority in your own country.
If so it is even more important to look to a future not so dependent on cheap imported labour. Time to embrace technology; a hard work ethic; a willingness to build and not expect to start at the top; and adopt a culture of learning not using.
I've been back freelancing for two and a half years now. It's much tougher than in Europe and I'm barely making a long term living. I had one serious contract from a British client but the work for locals has been unsatisfying to say the least.
We have no insolvency laws here but we do have very strict laws about getting into debt and passing bad cheques. You will go to prison. And since the recession many have. So how is it clients continually get away with incredibly slow payments and invariably never paying you in full? Government and official organisations are the worst of all delaying for a year or more and then short paying. You have no practical comeback. So you build it into the price and take a lot of your money upfront. Of course that makes it harder to get work. And puts prices up since you need to allow for the costs of collections in your price.
But then what's the point of doing work and not getting paid? And no one seems ashamed. It's near universal.
It wasn't always thus. It seems wealth has made the current generation of local business people not just more stand offish but more arrogant and self centred. Perhaps that's the penalty for being in a tiny minority in your own country.
If so it is even more important to look to a future not so dependent on cheap imported labour. Time to embrace technology; a hard work ethic; a willingness to build and not expect to start at the top; and adopt a culture of learning not using.
25 April 2010
Communications
I have always thought of myself as a professional communicator. I'm good at it and I'm good at people.
And yet I keep getting it wrong.
Today I've been working with one of my business partners on a document we're preparing for a potential big new client. I was totally sure we had agreed on the process after some back and forth commentary by mail and by phone.
But when it came to doing the work we were off down different tracks like scared bunnies.
Now we're friends as well as business partners so it doesn't cause real friction - more self mocking on my part and knuckling down to it on his and the end result is better for it.
The thing is ...we're professionals, trained and experienced. Yet we make communication errors like this everyday. How much harder is it for non-professionals who have to make communications work just as much? Without our toolbag.
It really brought home to me today how much skill is involved in good management and how rarely I give people credit for that.
Sorry.
And yet I keep getting it wrong.
Today I've been working with one of my business partners on a document we're preparing for a potential big new client. I was totally sure we had agreed on the process after some back and forth commentary by mail and by phone.
But when it came to doing the work we were off down different tracks like scared bunnies.
Now we're friends as well as business partners so it doesn't cause real friction - more self mocking on my part and knuckling down to it on his and the end result is better for it.
The thing is ...we're professionals, trained and experienced. Yet we make communication errors like this everyday. How much harder is it for non-professionals who have to make communications work just as much? Without our toolbag.
It really brought home to me today how much skill is involved in good management and how rarely I give people credit for that.
Sorry.
24 April 2010
The miseries or despair?
It's pretty miserable here at the moment. I'm 58 years old and I used to be quite well off. But as so many entrepreneurs have found out I didn't have a big enough bankroll to take the hits.
And after 7 years of struggling and juggling we hit the bottom. Broke and currently about to be homeless again, debts to family and friends and the next job several months away still. And today I'm really down - though possibly a little more buoyant than my wife who has had to deal with a lot of the rubbish and who didn't cause most of it.
I have a case of the "Miseries"
But as yet I'm not in despair. I'm not hungry or thirsty - though I have lost weight cuz I've been in no position to splurge of late. I will have a roof again in a day or two courtesy of friends, again, and there is a project in the pipeline. There is no reason to despair. And like so many entrepreneurs before me we will begin to climb out of the hole soon. My wife hasn't abandoned me nor even suggested the possibility - she seems to believe in my ability to dig us out. She is managing to cope with the slings and arrows with equanimity though she's patently very worried.
But to my point. There are many who don't get the difference between being broke, as we are, and being poor as are so many in the world and we are not. There are possibilities for us and with a little patience and some luck we'll be OK. We're NOT going to die from dehydration or from something nasty in the only available water supply. We are not going to starve anytime soon. We won't die from some horrible disease or from the want of a few coppers worth of medicine. Hell, we probably won't even lose access to the Internet!
So... a brief bout of feeling sorry for myself is OK on a bad day. But despair is so far from the table I can't even get a focus on the MIGHT be's. Thank goodness for the future.
And after 7 years of struggling and juggling we hit the bottom. Broke and currently about to be homeless again, debts to family and friends and the next job several months away still. And today I'm really down - though possibly a little more buoyant than my wife who has had to deal with a lot of the rubbish and who didn't cause most of it.
I have a case of the "Miseries"
But as yet I'm not in despair. I'm not hungry or thirsty - though I have lost weight cuz I've been in no position to splurge of late. I will have a roof again in a day or two courtesy of friends, again, and there is a project in the pipeline. There is no reason to despair. And like so many entrepreneurs before me we will begin to climb out of the hole soon. My wife hasn't abandoned me nor even suggested the possibility - she seems to believe in my ability to dig us out. She is managing to cope with the slings and arrows with equanimity though she's patently very worried.
But to my point. There are many who don't get the difference between being broke, as we are, and being poor as are so many in the world and we are not. There are possibilities for us and with a little patience and some luck we'll be OK. We're NOT going to die from dehydration or from something nasty in the only available water supply. We are not going to starve anytime soon. We won't die from some horrible disease or from the want of a few coppers worth of medicine. Hell, we probably won't even lose access to the Internet!
So... a brief bout of feeling sorry for myself is OK on a bad day. But despair is so far from the table I can't even get a focus on the MIGHT be's. Thank goodness for the future.
23 April 2010
So I use LinkedIn the business oriented social network a lot. It's proven useful for making interesting contacts especially as when I first became a freelance over here I had only a minuscule network of my own.
And I also play extensively on the Q&A section. It's often fun, frequently annoying and occasionally downright silly.
I have noticed as have many other regular contributors that about the commonest question posed is from people who have accidentally made themselves 2 or more accounts which aside from being against the rules is a PitA to manage. But it happens because of LinkedIn's design of the process to accept invitations from other members to link up - the core point of the service.
However because you can invite anyone to join using any of their myriad email addresses it is common that an existing member is invited to link by someone using an email address different from the one you used to join. And if you are NOT incredibly careful and don't read every line of every screen carefully (yeah like that's going to happen!) you will end up making a new account when you've already got a perfectly good one. And LinkedIn doesn't provide a way for a member to merge 2 accounts because it assumes you followed the rules and haven't got 2 accounts!
This is such a wonderful example in miniature of a problem so many businesses face. They swear they are customer focused (because, genuinely, they care about the customer being satisfied) but all their processes and procedures start from an inward facing company point of view and are then imposed on customers as the 'rules' so if it goes wrong it is now the customer's own fault!
LinkedIn is just one I happen to know as I use it a lot but you can see it everywhere. Government bureaucracies are a classic. Designed to satisfy internal needs and imposed on customers. But then spend millions on peripheral systems and processes to make the customer feel loved and wanted anyway.
It's madness.
The starting point should be something like "How do we design our processes and procedures so they are easy for the customer, have minimal risk of human error AND work for us?".
Whereas what actually happens too often is "We'll make the customer to do things our way and shower him/her with love and affection and try to convince them it's for their own good".
It's madness.
And I also play extensively on the Q&A section. It's often fun, frequently annoying and occasionally downright silly.
I have noticed as have many other regular contributors that about the commonest question posed is from people who have accidentally made themselves 2 or more accounts which aside from being against the rules is a PitA to manage. But it happens because of LinkedIn's design of the process to accept invitations from other members to link up - the core point of the service.
However because you can invite anyone to join using any of their myriad email addresses it is common that an existing member is invited to link by someone using an email address different from the one you used to join. And if you are NOT incredibly careful and don't read every line of every screen carefully (yeah like that's going to happen!) you will end up making a new account when you've already got a perfectly good one. And LinkedIn doesn't provide a way for a member to merge 2 accounts because it assumes you followed the rules and haven't got 2 accounts!
This is such a wonderful example in miniature of a problem so many businesses face. They swear they are customer focused (because, genuinely, they care about the customer being satisfied) but all their processes and procedures start from an inward facing company point of view and are then imposed on customers as the 'rules' so if it goes wrong it is now the customer's own fault!
LinkedIn is just one I happen to know as I use it a lot but you can see it everywhere. Government bureaucracies are a classic. Designed to satisfy internal needs and imposed on customers. But then spend millions on peripheral systems and processes to make the customer feel loved and wanted anyway.
It's madness.
The starting point should be something like "How do we design our processes and procedures so they are easy for the customer, have minimal risk of human error AND work for us?".
Whereas what actually happens too often is "We'll make the customer to do things our way and shower him/her with love and affection and try to convince them it's for their own good".
It's madness.
22 April 2010
The Niqab, the Lungi and the Prophet
I have read a number of disturbing clothing and tolerance related stories of late.
In Sharjah they have banned men from wearing a lungi in public. It was deemed 'women's' clothing and un-Islamic. There's an awful lot of people in Yemen, Oman and all over the Indian sub-continent who would most certainly beg to differ.
Men are now being rounded up for wearing jewellery and specifically neck chains. That means I too am under threat because I wear my wedding ring on a thong round my neck since it became worn and sharp on my finger.
I read that Belgium like France is considering banning the Burqa and Niqab, indeed all coverings that hide the face. Muslim groups are up in arms about religious tolerance.
How is this different from Sharjah's actions?
South Park is taking flak for portraying Prophet Mohammed in a bear suit. Threats have been made.
I saw an awful cartoon of caricature Jews conspiring with the Pope and President Obama in a newspaper recently over here in the Gulf. No howls of hurt outrage from anyone...
There's something wrong in the world. Reality has been twisted to remove common sense.
For the record I am sitting at home wearing my lungi and a Patriots T-shirt from the last time they won the Superbowl. My wife is in jeans and T-shirt. Is she a cross dresser?
The muezzin is calling outside. There's a lively Bollywood movie on the box right now. My pizza is on its way from the shop. This is more like it!
In Sharjah they have banned men from wearing a lungi in public. It was deemed 'women's' clothing and un-Islamic. There's an awful lot of people in Yemen, Oman and all over the Indian sub-continent who would most certainly beg to differ.
Men are now being rounded up for wearing jewellery and specifically neck chains. That means I too am under threat because I wear my wedding ring on a thong round my neck since it became worn and sharp on my finger.
I read that Belgium like France is considering banning the Burqa and Niqab, indeed all coverings that hide the face. Muslim groups are up in arms about religious tolerance.
How is this different from Sharjah's actions?
South Park is taking flak for portraying Prophet Mohammed in a bear suit. Threats have been made.
I saw an awful cartoon of caricature Jews conspiring with the Pope and President Obama in a newspaper recently over here in the Gulf. No howls of hurt outrage from anyone...
There's something wrong in the world. Reality has been twisted to remove common sense.
For the record I am sitting at home wearing my lungi and a Patriots T-shirt from the last time they won the Superbowl. My wife is in jeans and T-shirt. Is she a cross dresser?
The muezzin is calling outside. There's a lively Bollywood movie on the box right now. My pizza is on its way from the shop. This is more like it!
Bleeagh...people can be disgusting
Litter
UAE is a rich country. That’s not to deny there are poor people but on the whole it’s a rich place. We have nice cities, nice spaces both publicly and privately, Our new buildings are positively smart with marble floors and fancy decoration, lots of glass and chrome and shiny bright jingly bits that add a glitzy opulence to even a pretty run of the mill apartment block.
In public areas we have lots of block pathways that are kept up by an army of low paid but willing municipal workers.
It’s nice.
So why do people throw litter everywhere? It’s not as if there are no bins. There are litter bins all over in public areas and the back streets and alleys teem with dumpsters. Even the motorways have dumpsters and bins by the illegal truck stops!
Yet I watch people throw litter all the time.
There’s a house next to the apartments where I live. I one story local place inhabited by young Sri Lankan men; eight or nine of them perhaps more. Until a week ago there was a huge sandpile next to their building from the construction site opposite. Then it was cleared by the builders. Where the pile was is now an unofficial parking lot.
In one week by the outside of the wall of the house a pile of litter has appeared. Rubbish sacks, plastic cups, packaging, peelings. I wondered. But yesterday as I was leaving to fetch my car and walking across the parking lot I was nearly hit by a rubbish sack sailing over the wall from the house. Closely followed by a Styrofoam cup. Words were exchange but mostly all I got was the annoying passive shoulder shrug of someone who doesn’t understand and doesn’t give a toss. When I got home I found some garbage sacks and cleared the pile. Put the sacks in the dumpster on the other side of the house.
This morning there are more bags and cans and cups.
There’s a cafeteria opposite our building. This is a local phenomenon that you used to get all over UAE but is not allowed anymore in Dubai and Sharjah. Te cafeteria has no tables or eating space yet neither is it a takeaway. You pull up in your car and honk your horn (don’t get me started on that one!). Eventually a waiter staggers out and brings you a tea and takes any other order you may have. Water and cigarettes are common. Then you sit in your car and drink your tea and perhaps eat a shawarma sandwich and leave. But before you leave you drop your cup and sandwich wrappings and the cellophane from your cigarettes on the ground. Occasionally the waiter comes and picks up some of the litter. Never all of it and often none. The leavings pile up for a few weeks and sometimes the council will send a team in to do a sweep through. There’s a dumpster for the cafeteria. I often watch the staff throw things at it and miss. They never pick it up. The council empties the dumpster every couple of days. They are not responsible for the rotting pile on the ground. The cafeteria only clears it when it gets too smelly.
I watch kids and their parents eat a burger from one of the fast food joints around here. I watch them all throw the case and paper wraps on the ground and walk away. I watch people buy cigarettes and throw the wrappers on the ground before getting in their car. I watch people throw tea bags out of car window while they’re parked followed later by the cup. I watch kids throw empty cans away without a thought and I watch their parent do the same.
There is a total lack of pride in the environment. A ‘don’t care’ attitude that you might, just, forgive in an expat labourer who’s just passing through but seems bizarre in a well off Emirati family whose home this is.
I used to live in Sharjah near the Buhairah Corniche. This is an upmarket area on the creek full of smart tower blocks and shops and cafes. It also has a wide green running the length of the cornice where at weekends families come and picnic by the water.
If you visit just at dusk on a Friday you will be greeted by a sea of litter – paper, cans, plastic cups, bags, all sorts. People have their picnic and just leave the mess. Including uneaten foodstuffs. It is certainly not possible for others to follow where someone was before without a major clean up exercise, which never happens either. The council clears up overnight here. Very effectively in fact. But by mid morning the next day it’s all reappearing. More slowly than the weekend but just as inexorably.
There are plenty of litter bins by the way including recycling bins for glass, paper and cans. They are empty most of the time.
I am embarrassed for these people. This is not a third world hellhole with no money. These are well off people in nice surrounding. They have no dignity.
UAE is a rich country. That’s not to deny there are poor people but on the whole it’s a rich place. We have nice cities, nice spaces both publicly and privately, Our new buildings are positively smart with marble floors and fancy decoration, lots of glass and chrome and shiny bright jingly bits that add a glitzy opulence to even a pretty run of the mill apartment block.
In public areas we have lots of block pathways that are kept up by an army of low paid but willing municipal workers.
It’s nice.
So why do people throw litter everywhere? It’s not as if there are no bins. There are litter bins all over in public areas and the back streets and alleys teem with dumpsters. Even the motorways have dumpsters and bins by the illegal truck stops!
Yet I watch people throw litter all the time.
There’s a house next to the apartments where I live. I one story local place inhabited by young Sri Lankan men; eight or nine of them perhaps more. Until a week ago there was a huge sandpile next to their building from the construction site opposite. Then it was cleared by the builders. Where the pile was is now an unofficial parking lot.
In one week by the outside of the wall of the house a pile of litter has appeared. Rubbish sacks, plastic cups, packaging, peelings. I wondered. But yesterday as I was leaving to fetch my car and walking across the parking lot I was nearly hit by a rubbish sack sailing over the wall from the house. Closely followed by a Styrofoam cup. Words were exchange but mostly all I got was the annoying passive shoulder shrug of someone who doesn’t understand and doesn’t give a toss. When I got home I found some garbage sacks and cleared the pile. Put the sacks in the dumpster on the other side of the house.
This morning there are more bags and cans and cups.
There’s a cafeteria opposite our building. This is a local phenomenon that you used to get all over UAE but is not allowed anymore in Dubai and Sharjah. Te cafeteria has no tables or eating space yet neither is it a takeaway. You pull up in your car and honk your horn (don’t get me started on that one!). Eventually a waiter staggers out and brings you a tea and takes any other order you may have. Water and cigarettes are common. Then you sit in your car and drink your tea and perhaps eat a shawarma sandwich and leave. But before you leave you drop your cup and sandwich wrappings and the cellophane from your cigarettes on the ground. Occasionally the waiter comes and picks up some of the litter. Never all of it and often none. The leavings pile up for a few weeks and sometimes the council will send a team in to do a sweep through. There’s a dumpster for the cafeteria. I often watch the staff throw things at it and miss. They never pick it up. The council empties the dumpster every couple of days. They are not responsible for the rotting pile on the ground. The cafeteria only clears it when it gets too smelly.
I watch kids and their parents eat a burger from one of the fast food joints around here. I watch them all throw the case and paper wraps on the ground and walk away. I watch people buy cigarettes and throw the wrappers on the ground before getting in their car. I watch people throw tea bags out of car window while they’re parked followed later by the cup. I watch kids throw empty cans away without a thought and I watch their parent do the same.
There is a total lack of pride in the environment. A ‘don’t care’ attitude that you might, just, forgive in an expat labourer who’s just passing through but seems bizarre in a well off Emirati family whose home this is.
I used to live in Sharjah near the Buhairah Corniche. This is an upmarket area on the creek full of smart tower blocks and shops and cafes. It also has a wide green running the length of the cornice where at weekends families come and picnic by the water.
If you visit just at dusk on a Friday you will be greeted by a sea of litter – paper, cans, plastic cups, bags, all sorts. People have their picnic and just leave the mess. Including uneaten foodstuffs. It is certainly not possible for others to follow where someone was before without a major clean up exercise, which never happens either. The council clears up overnight here. Very effectively in fact. But by mid morning the next day it’s all reappearing. More slowly than the weekend but just as inexorably.
There are plenty of litter bins by the way including recycling bins for glass, paper and cans. They are empty most of the time.
I am embarrassed for these people. This is not a third world hellhole with no money. These are well off people in nice surrounding. They have no dignity.
Cheapest is bestest?
Quality
What follows might stand as an example of how the UAE looks at quality generally and how people treat their public amenities.
About a year ago the local authorities in Ajman refurbished the beach area along the corniche. They put in a new pedestrian path, created a lot of free parking, installed benches to sit out on and fenced off a couple of dangerous areas with attractive new railings.
For a few weeks it looked very smart and very nice.
The first thing that happened was a couple of the benches began to break up and the problem was threefold – cheap, low grade, no maintenance.
The major problem was these benches are of the normal domestic kind that in the UK or US you might buy in a Garden Centre or DIY store. They are made of aluminium and wood.
Critically for this story they are designed to be in a private garden space with occasional gentle use by a proud family. They are not designed for constant use by tourists, kids, chaps hanging around watching the football, jumping on, eating picnics on for a family of six, having coffee poured over them, having fast food dropped on and ground in and never being maintained.
So now the paint has worn off, many slats are broken, some decorative swirls are snapped off and many benches have come loose from their moorings.
In short they are decorative but relatively fragile. Most importantly though they are cheap compared to the industrial version. And never given even the most basic of cleaning or maintenance.
So within months the promenade had broken down benches.
Then the railings started to go. These too are of a quality more suited to a private garden rather than a robust urban seaside environment. They are aluminium and covered in a single coat of domestic grade paint. They have unsafe and fragile protuberances many of which are now breaking off. And they are attached to the concrete or brick with small shallow fixings and non-stainless steel bolts. Right next to the ocean.
Many sections have not stayed fixed. Nor have they been re-fixed. This means that neighbouring sections are also now coming loose and the whole process is speeding up.
Entropy increases.
Because there is no maintenance the debris of broken benches and railings are left on the beach or the walkways. They are used to build paths from the promenade to the beach so people can avoid a 20-metre walk to the steps…
They attract litter – people are sloppy about littering here – which also doesn’t get cleaned up. Lately I’ve seen rats in the debris.
The odd thing to me is the city has the beach cleaned daily. I’ve mentioned littering above.
But troops of men come daily and fill sacks with rubbish so the beach remains as clean as any public beach can though they will leave behind the bigger debris. If – as happens surprisingly often – someone dumps an old car part or piece of furniture then that may stay for a month or more as will a sack of rubbish not filled by the council’s own workers. Residents would not dream of clearing something themselves.
I kinda understand why the low paid expat workers can’t be bothered. I’m totally bemused as to why the local Emiratis won’t do anything for themselves. They seem content to wallow in mess if it isn’t cleared for them.
So there you have it. If it looks ok on day one that’s good enough. If it falls apart quickly that’s good enough. If it’s dangerous but looks ok that’s good enough. If it’s barely functional but cheap it’s a good deal. If everything has to be replaced after 18 months that’s ok. They were cheap. That’s good enough.
Very depressing.
What follows might stand as an example of how the UAE looks at quality generally and how people treat their public amenities.
About a year ago the local authorities in Ajman refurbished the beach area along the corniche. They put in a new pedestrian path, created a lot of free parking, installed benches to sit out on and fenced off a couple of dangerous areas with attractive new railings.
For a few weeks it looked very smart and very nice.
The first thing that happened was a couple of the benches began to break up and the problem was threefold – cheap, low grade, no maintenance.
The major problem was these benches are of the normal domestic kind that in the UK or US you might buy in a Garden Centre or DIY store. They are made of aluminium and wood.
Critically for this story they are designed to be in a private garden space with occasional gentle use by a proud family. They are not designed for constant use by tourists, kids, chaps hanging around watching the football, jumping on, eating picnics on for a family of six, having coffee poured over them, having fast food dropped on and ground in and never being maintained.
So now the paint has worn off, many slats are broken, some decorative swirls are snapped off and many benches have come loose from their moorings.
In short they are decorative but relatively fragile. Most importantly though they are cheap compared to the industrial version. And never given even the most basic of cleaning or maintenance.
So within months the promenade had broken down benches.
Then the railings started to go. These too are of a quality more suited to a private garden rather than a robust urban seaside environment. They are aluminium and covered in a single coat of domestic grade paint. They have unsafe and fragile protuberances many of which are now breaking off. And they are attached to the concrete or brick with small shallow fixings and non-stainless steel bolts. Right next to the ocean.
Many sections have not stayed fixed. Nor have they been re-fixed. This means that neighbouring sections are also now coming loose and the whole process is speeding up.
Entropy increases.
Because there is no maintenance the debris of broken benches and railings are left on the beach or the walkways. They are used to build paths from the promenade to the beach so people can avoid a 20-metre walk to the steps…
They attract litter – people are sloppy about littering here – which also doesn’t get cleaned up. Lately I’ve seen rats in the debris.
The odd thing to me is the city has the beach cleaned daily. I’ve mentioned littering above.
But troops of men come daily and fill sacks with rubbish so the beach remains as clean as any public beach can though they will leave behind the bigger debris. If – as happens surprisingly often – someone dumps an old car part or piece of furniture then that may stay for a month or more as will a sack of rubbish not filled by the council’s own workers. Residents would not dream of clearing something themselves.
I kinda understand why the low paid expat workers can’t be bothered. I’m totally bemused as to why the local Emiratis won’t do anything for themselves. They seem content to wallow in mess if it isn’t cleared for them.
So there you have it. If it looks ok on day one that’s good enough. If it falls apart quickly that’s good enough. If it’s dangerous but looks ok that’s good enough. If it’s barely functional but cheap it’s a good deal. If everything has to be replaced after 18 months that’s ok. They were cheap. That’s good enough.
Very depressing.
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