Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Friendly Post

I'm gonna keep my first post debate-free by picking a simple topic without much room for arguement available...

Bad habits are hard to let go of!! Living in Jeddah for most of my life (Except for 4 years in Boston), I couldn't help but get used to the life style of the people here... Although the second largest business city in Saudi, it seems like Jeddahwi people are not used to living an organized lifestyle... People tend to wake up late (By late, I speak of waking up after noon time for those who have no work or studies and around 8 am for those who do...) Although waking up at 8 am is typical of any employee with a 9 to 5 job, the fashion of which Jeddah does it makes it all unique...

The Night before:

Let me give an example of a very normal day of a Saudi in Jeddah as an explanation... Dinners are always late, typically not before 11 am for the avergae family. Streets are still full of cars till the late hours of the night... This should be unexpected as there aren't any activities to do after the shops close at 11 pm, but from then onwards, those outside either go out for dinner, or just cruise in their cars for hours till they get bored and decide to finally go back home... At home, the TV awaits, where people spend the early hours after midnight glued to the television mostly flipping between various music channels... For those who have work the next day, a lights out policy doesn't usually apply... On many nights, they end up sleeping at around 3 am with dreaded image of waking up 5 hours later in their minds...

The morning After:

Of course, as expected, they wake up tired, annoyed and lazy... This rubs off at the office, where the first hour is spent reading the newspaper and sipping on a cup of tea... At around 10-10.30, people start the process called work... That usually lasts for a couple of hours because at around 12.30, everyone starts preparing for prayer... By the time people finish praying at 1, the lunch break will have started, so most of the people get out of the office and go have a hearty meal (either at home with the family, or at a restaurant with friends)... By the time everyone returns to work from lunch, its almost 2.30-3.00 but then again people need to relax a bit after such a hearty meal! Half an hour of mingling with office mates while drinking another cup of tea is the usual norm here... Now it's 4 o'clock! Time to do some work! But wait, just as ur about to roll up ur sleeves and get into the nitty gritty stuff, it's already 6 pm! Damn, its time to go home... As much as I would love to stay and finish up work, I just can't, as I have a family at home that misses me dearly!!!

Procrastination??

Okay so I'll finish up work tomorrow! After all, I do have all day from 9 till 6 to finish it up, right? Or maybe not? Oh well, worst case scenario, it'll be done before the weekend!!! And they wonder why we're no where near the top when it comes to Global Power!!! What a shame...

Posted by -OT- @ 3:58 PM, with 11 Comments so far!

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