I apologize about the days missed from blogging, but I knew it was going to come to a point where I was going to run out of material. I have been scribbling some notes as the days pass and have decided to sum them up in one blog.
Bob Miller, the Regional Manager for the Midwest, was here to meet with the clients and develop a business strategy for the future of ADS in the Middle East. In short, ADS needs to open an office that has a person there at all times. Not just an office for a contract, not like we have now, but an office similar to the Erlanger Office, Indy Office, St. Louis Office, etc. One of the clients views this as a commitment of ADS in the Middle East. He is here until Thursday and he returns home.
ADS in Huntsville had an international Blackberry shipped to me. It was not available when I came to Amman. It arrived in Amman on October 30th, but was on Clearance Hold in Customs. After some phone calls “In Arabic” and some possible threats, it was determined that I could go and pick it up at FedEx on November 8th. I went to FedEx that was near the office, and received paperwork. I signed for paperwork, not the phone. Wait for it, it gets better.
1) I was instructed to take the paper that I received from FedEx to Customs at the airport.
2) We drove 20 minutes to the airport and needed to get a stamp and signature from the security booth in order to get to Customs.
3) My translator cannot get past the security checkpoint, only I can go. Once in the Customs area, I needed another stamp and signature to get into the FedEx cage.
4) Once in the FedEx cage, one of the guys working for FedEx riffles through about 150 boxes and finds the box that contains my phone. This had to be the most unorganized fucking mess I have ever seen. Not even the drivers could find shit that they needed to deliver.
5) He hands the phone over to a Customs Official who opens the box, inspects the Blackberry and the charger. He then stamps and signs my paperwork from FedEx.
6) Then I wait, and wait, and wait some more. About an hour passes and I start getting inquisitive. I ask the FedEx guy what the problem was, and he told me that I needed to have security sign and stamp my fucking paperwork AGAIN to release the phone. I ask “How long?” and he replied two minutes.
7) Another 30 minutes passes and still no security representative. The FedEx guy takes my paperwork and I assume he hand delivers it to security. Finally, 10 minutes later, I leave with the damn phone.
8) To put a cap on this story, the password to unlock the phone, phone number, voice mail code is on a sticker on the back of the phone. I tried the password on the sticker 6 different ways, one shy of locking me out for good and deleting the Blackberry OS. The person that used it last changed the fucking password, so I was locked out of it until yesterday when Huntsville emailed me the password.
This was just for a phone. Can you imagine what it is like getting 4 crates of equipment out of Customs duty and tax free because it is a government project?
I have a story about the equipment in Customs also. The ADS partner, El Concorde, a local construction company, has a procurement guy whose job is to deal with getting shit out of Customs. FedEx and their genius worldwide logistics shipped the crates to two different countries before sending it to Amman. 3 crates went to London, England and the other crate went to Turkey. Obviously, the crates arrived at different times. Jordanian Customs thinks that we were trying to “smuggle” illegal goods into the country. This is most likely going to push the release date for the equipment back a couple of days. If you ask me, I think that it is fucking hilarious.
I got moved into the apartment. We drove all over creation looking for an oscillating fan for my bedroom. You would think that this area being in the desert would have plenty of fans. All of the stores were selling portable heaters! WTF! Evidently it gets cold here; I have not seen it yet. It has been 85 and sunny since I have been here with the exception of one day.
I also bought new bed sheets, bath towels, and groceries. I finally have a washing machine, so I don’t need to send everything to the dry cleaners.
Tuesday was Election Day here, so it was a national holiday so nobody worked. I got a chance to visit the Roman Citadel to take some photos. The citadel was closed, but I paid the security guy a couple of JD (Jordanian Dinars) to let me in. That did not get me the Full Monte, so I need to go back to get better photos. I will post photos of the ruins, amphitheater, and fountain on Facebook.
This country being as poor as it is, almost everyone is on the take. This is one reason why people get away with illegal water connections. The company that issues the bills is responsible for enforcing illegal water connections found by ADS. They get a bonus for the ones they find. For some reason, the same violators keep getting turned in, and their bonus stays the same. This is because the people with illegal connections are related to or are paying off the Water Company.
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