I was driving my scooter yesterday morning on my way to work around 6 AM when I witnessed the amazing view you can see below. For 5 full minutes I stopped regretting being up so early in the morning, I then hopped back on my scooter to go to work...
As I am on an island I can’t help thinking of the TV Show lost when I look at this shot.
My fourth trip to La Reunion is everything but relaxing. Here is how my work days usually go lately.
Gobies De Feu
The alarm rings at 7:45 AM but I have been awake for roughly one hour and I have tried every position possible in the bed to go back to sleep. Even though I have moved a lot, my feet find the exact spot where my slippers are when they get out of the bed. I walk to the living room to grab the phone and stop the alarm, put a bowl of milk in the microwave oven and head to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I have breakfast while watching a Japanese anime then drive to work with my scooter. I have to be very careful on the way because people only use the turning light when they have already started turning, they have no clue what to do when it comes to entering and exiting a roundabout and that creates a lot of traffic jam but most of all a lot think that it is a good thing to drive much slower than the maximum speed limit allowed.
Merou Croissant Jaune
I get to work at 9:OO AM and I learn that the network went down the day before or is down, I have to take care of it A.S.A.P. or find out what went wrong. As I am looking for the root of the problem my phone reminds me of the things I wanted to do during the day. After a while I stop postponing the reminders to later in the day to avoid being disturbed and set all of them for the next day. My phone doesn’t stop ringing during all this, I am asked what is happening, if I have a solution or when it will be solved: this is exactly what I need to stay focused. When I look at the clock for the first time it is almost time for the lunch break, I complete my analysis and use the little time I have left to read and send some emails.
Epervier Strie
Back from the lunch break at 12:30 PM I still have to finish reading my emails to be able to finally start doing what I had planed for the day. I have to explain why it is not moving forward as planed to my bosses, I have to explain why problems occurred and how I dealt with them, I have to remind people that they are supposed to help me on a specific issue that I have, I have to give some information I don’t have to the people who ask me for it. I can finally start working till the end of the day on what I have been sent to this island for. If I am lucky no new problem will occur and I will be able to move forward with my schedule.
Chirurgiens Bagnard
I am back to my place around 7:00 PM, I fall in the sofa as soon as I have closed the door. I am so beat sometimes that I have a really hard time getting up to shower and then head out for diner or cook something. The evening is gone in no time and it takes me less than a minute to fall asleep when I am in bed. Thankfully I can spend at least 40 minutes at 20 meters underwater each week-end and that is more than enough to give me all the strength I need for the coming week.
I am in La Reunion for the fourth time this year and I will enjoy the summer season on the island. My stay started very well: I had to work on the night of my arrival from 11PM to 11AM; this is what I call a welcome.
Last Monday I had to work in the evening; as I live in Saint-Gilles and I was supposed to work in Le Port I ordered a taxi to come and pick me up at my place.
I stepped out around midnight to go get my taxi but there was nothing waiting for me outside. Ten minutes later istill didn’t see any taxi coming. I called the driver and asked where he was, he answered that he tried to call me but it would never connect. He thought it was a prank mostly because I asked him to meet me in front of a bar right in front of where I live. I told him that I really needed a taxi and that he should hurry to come and get me but he didn’t seem motivated: he was afraid I would not be there. I explained that I didn’t call him twice the same day not to show up when he would get at the meeting place, he was still not convinced. He asked for my phone number but I just had that number for 4 days and really couldn’t remember the digits. I answered that he should write the numbers appearing on his phone but he countered that no numbers where displayed; that was odd but not impossible. I repeated that he should hurry up because I had other things to do than waste time talking to him instead of being at work, it finally convinced him to move.
We set up a meet in a place he knew in the city and he asked me again to be at the meeting place before hanging up. I confirmed that I would be waiting for him, hung up and 2 minutes later he called back to remind me two wait for him. I could have sworn he told me my phone number didn’t appear on his phone… In the end I was 45 minutes late at work, one thing is for sure the next time I work at night I will rent a scooter.
This week I will have the huge pleasure of going home, I say the huge pleasure because it has been a very long time since a work assignment has been so trying; I believe the last one was in China in 2004. This assignment has been that tough on me mostly because of the culture difference between me and my customer, it has affected the work relationship.
Once I was here, I have quickly realized that for the local population nothing matters much. It usually is a good thing on a day to day basis because the people will be more relaxed but it can quickly become quite frustrating when it comes to keeping a work schedule and finishing a project at the expected date. Each time I would ask for something I learned to always specify a time constraint not to wait indefinitely for it. Even with this time constraint I would still need to go check how things were going. Whether I ask for something simple or complex to be done I would never get it done straight away. I would sometime get the feeling that what I asked was forgotten as soon as I was walking away, I even have the confirmation of such a thing when I would get in the office of the one I asked and he would jump out of his chair to go where he was supposed to do something for me as soon as he laid his eyes on me. In many cases I would get a “sorry sorry” (I will take care of it right away because I forgot) and the person would go back to internet surfing as soon as I would walk away. There is no point in getting angry because they simply wouldn’t understand why I would get angry, what matters to them is that I would get what I asked for; when simply doesn’t matter. I would have a hard time explaining that I can’t stay all my life on their island because they are incapable of meeting a time limit. With all the work I had, I took the time to go check the progress of each of the tasks I gave. I would go check the status when coming to work in the morning, I would check again just before or after lunch break and I would check again at 4PM before everyone would start to go home. I know it seems a lot but trust me, in a lot of cases it wasn’t even enough.
My company has taken care of every aspects of previous project with this customer and would only leave when all would be up and running. As this project is only an extension the customer has to participate in the setup of new services. He is so used to not having to do anything that the change is very difficult. When I ask something it goes a little bit like this: - You’re not taking care of this? - No it is completely out of my domain, I don’t know anything about this. - Ok but usually your company takes care of this. - Yeah well, this time there is no one to take care of this and you guys have people whose job it is to take care of this. - I’m going to see what we can do - Ah you can’t see what you can do but you have to do it otherwise it will never work - Ok when do you need this? - Right now. When I say now, I know I will never get anything the same day, work stops at 4:15 PM here so work days are very short, when I ask something for the same day I may have a chance of getting it 2 days later. Here is a variant if I ask for a cable to be put between 2 machines: - Do you have the cable for this? - You don’t have any? - We have to check. They in fact have the cable needed but they have to look for it, it is easier for them to ask me first if I have some.
On a few occasions when the customer has difficulties providing me with something I asked, the person will come to me and say something like: “we are doing our best and in case we can’t do it your company will help us with that”. I always feel like answering: “I really don’t see what my company can do for this, it is not our job”. I feel like the customer relies completely on us and as soon as they can’t manage something it is our duty to takeover. They relied a lot on me to help solve the problem they faced while I was here. I could have told them not to bother me with stuff out of my domain but if I really wanted to leave this place I had to takeover. When I do fun is over and you better do what I tell you otherwise I might throw you out of a window. Some guys from the customer had to stay till 8 PM because I wanted them to finish a task before going home. I didn’t make friends but put yourself in my shoes: I haven’t seen my wife for more than 2 months, the project I am working on is not moving forward and it is not my doing, the only way to get out of this is to push the ones who are not doing their jobs for reasons I just don’t understand. I am certain that each guy from my company who came to Kiribati before me was faced with the similar problem.
During my stay I understood that the reason why things were not moving forward when I was asking something to be done: they are so used to have someone take care of everything that they simply don’t understand how the stuff works. Every foreigner I have talked to agrees with me, you can’t stay more that 2 weeks on this island. I am so lucky!
