My friend has an engineer husband who has been working in Saudi Arabia for more than 2 decades now.   Jill used to recount the many sacrifices  and problems they had weathered because of her husband’s absence from his family and to make up for everything, he richly provided their needs sometimes to a fault because the children grew up spoiled.   There is always a price to pay!  His husband David, has been working in a big oil exploration company in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia and marcellus drilling has been a part of his life.  Although it is hard for Jill to understand the nature of his job but one thing is clear, the work concerns oil and petroleum which abound the rich soil of the province.

Natural gas undergo processing and it is commercially extracted in oil and natural gas fields which yielded positive benefits by producing abundant supply of energy derived from gases explored.  One exploration company that deals with huge projects that covers numerous countries with vast reserves of oil and gas is  UG Oil and Gas Center.  The company’s deals expertly and extensively in non stop  exploration activity of  digging and exploring vast natural and mineral resources.

Being part of an exploration team means going to hard to reach places in search of oil reserves and it also means a handsome pay for Jill husband.   Their children’s future is the reason behind all those sacrifices and David continuously works hard enough to learn global unconventional resource exploration.  The stock knowledge acquired through the years serves as consolation to his lonely life away from home and his family is his inspiration while his company his source of his wealth.

He will be old and grey and will retire soon but UG Oil and Gas Center will unceasingly span the globe exploring for profitable resource find and millions of people will benefit from it.

I wasn’t surprised at all when our colleague was promoted 2 level higher than most of us who were about 5-6 years senior in service than her.  She was a budding junior IT specialist , new university graduate  but armed not only with charm but considerable stock knowledge and fresh ideas.  Undoubtedly, she is bright, very much opinionated and ambitious that somehow, some senior ladies in the department oftentimes resent her presence and brushed aside her inputs.  For some reason, one officemate would always consider her a “threat” and labeling her as someone who is  ”pulling too many strings”and using good connections to facilitate her early rise to Supervisory position.

While it is true that this very ambitious stance of her is getting the ire of some, but my personal views changed after a chanced one to one talk with her.  Aside from her family life, she also recounted how she struggled past through her university studies and how she strives hard  to get Online Courses and pursue her long dream of becoming a good web page designer.  She persevered studying while working because she has a goal…. She bravely admitted that her projected toughness was due to  the hardships she had in life and this inspired her no end to work her way up.  She also recounted that upon learning of a supervisory position in our IT department would be vacated soon,  she divulged that she started mapping up her career path by taking online degree program in web designs to elevate her level of educational attainment.   And true enough, she best qualified and was hired for the position not long after she finished her program.

I felt the sincerity in her voice when she said she felt sorry for her colleagues for thinking otherwise because of her recent promotion.  She would like to reach out to those colleagues who alienated from her to also go for their dreams of promotion ( if they have any).  Well, she added that should they want to further their  studies, it is always possible with on line degree programs offering various courses of choice and like her, she availed the assistance of Federal Student Aid College Finder http://studentaid2.ed.gov/gotocollege/collegefinder/advanced_find.asp.

Her parting word was… “once they have finished the program, it might work wonders for them too!”    Whoa!  That was quite an intriguing one!

There goes my highly opinionated friend..err supervisor!

Missed blogging for some days!  A colleague was away for 5 weeks holidays and who else would be the best coverage for her work but me.   We called the arrangement “back to back”.. all administrative works are passed on and these would mean handling the whole section during her absence and vice versa.

Really I don’t mind but sometimes there were days that most physicians are “toxic” (irritable and unreasonable) who would demand unnecessary requests.   Currently, I am handling 3 sections, CSICU (Cardiac Surgical Intensive Care Unit), Perfusion Section and Pediatric Cardiology Section (which was endorsed to me).   Aside from that, I am dealing with the Recontracting of all staff  and Physician’s Clinical Privileges, Overtime and Calltime entry, Payroll of  Cardiovascular department .  Whewww…. such heavy load!

I am looking forward to my summer vacation next month.   Now it’s pay back time.. back to back…

Coffee in the morning…coffee during office break, coffee before retiring to bed.  Obviously, I  have caffeine overload but I need a cup since it is a powerful booster especially in the office where stress looms and became a part of our daily life.  I take my coffee with creamer and 2 sachets of sugar and aroma and taste of brewed coffee keeps me mentally alert.

Since, it is a must for everybody in our administrative section to be always ready for stress or for  any eventuality that our job entails because we are handling physicians.  They have moods (we too!)  most especially ours is a Cardiovascular department with Adult, Pediatric, Intensive Care and Cardiac Surgery sections under one roof.   You could just imagine how to work in a department where tensions are usually high especially when surgeons had come from Operating room and had a difficult procedures done.   Laborious 8-10 hours operation and that would somehow produce a toxic surgeon (of the day).   Whoa!  expect to deal with a difficult, unreasonable person!   Add to their stress is when their patient became a Mortality and Morbidity case… the emotions are understandable.

Oh well… coffee is also a stress reliever… Care for coffee doctor???? lol

a work of art

With such an innovative mind and an eye for art, my brother cleverly recycled materials which he artistically put together and came up with a beautiful chair.   He painstakingly assembled old parts which to some is already useless…..but to him is worth a treasure….

Except from it’s original seat… the headrest is made of a carabao’s yoke.  Yoke? ….it is a wooden piece attached to the back of the head of the carabao (water buffallo) I’ve seen used  by my grandfather when plowing the fields, the back rest was window rod (?) while the footrest is a treadle or pedal of an old sewing machine.  Other parts were salvaged from a truck , a carriage and some I don’t know where it originally came from…..  Whew… hard to describe but you can just figure it out for yourself….

Amazing!  It is one for keeps….and our brod continue to make us proud…

Jake, a very good friend hosted a  thanksgiving party a week ago.  We can’t help but marvel at his mansion up on a hill overlooking a spectacular beach view.  He was estatic over the very good turn out of his company’s year-end report and he had all good reasons to celebrate and share the blessings he and his family are continuously enjoying.

His business empire - an  import/export handicraft business is making  fortune!   It  started as a small company and now considered to be successful and one of the biggest supplier of handicrafts locally and internationally.   Just like any other business, it was plagued at the start with all sorts of problems, however, he is  lucky to be sorrounded by dedicated manpower and a business partner who introduced him to the wonderful world of web hosting.

Their company is  provided with the best professional service ever that its success soared high in no time at all.  He was bragging how his company was  handled perfectly by managed hosting.   I also wonder what  is it in colocation?  I’ve heard this alien- sounding word countless of times all throughout the night. He was all praises every time he mentioned about it and the sparke in his eyes easily give away his excitement (or the secret!).

Hmmmm… need to do my research because I believe I am already outdated with news about technologies, web hosting, et al.  I don’t want to be left behind since a cousin overseas showed interest in a garment business.   I know all the bits and pieces of information I’ve gathered from Jake about web hosting will be of great help.

My officemate was conspicuously late for work and I was getting anxious that she might not be able to do her morning routine of preparing our conference room for the daily Cardiology morning meeting.  If she will not be able to make it on time, surely, the bulk of the work will be passed on to me.  Actually, I won’t mind but still, I also have loads to do and additional task will derail my time table.

True enough, I was texted that she will be late and was asked to take over.  Though I wasn’t prepared for it, I was obliged to do it, but I was somewhat disappointed because the conference and kitchen keys are nowhere to be found.   How can I prepare the projector for the Powerpoint presentation, open the computer for the log in timesheet and the coffee pots should have been brewing with fresh coffee by that time?  I was all pressured!  Apparently, she took the keys home and I have to call for security personnel and  request to open the doors.

What a morning!  You are all made up, all perfumed for work and now you’ve got yourself a little bit sweaty for being a bit panicky because the clock is ticking fast and the doctors are all coming in to log- in their attendance. The conference room still closed, the security is on his way…. got to compose myself and wait for expected rants of our Department chairman just in case I won’t be able to prepare the room on the dot.

Whew!  How can you blame a colleague for being late who was profusely asking apology for her tardiness?  Well, no recourse but to say it’s alright! I hope she is not making up excuses… it would be better if she will set her alarm clock an hour earlier so there will be no rushing on her part.   This getting up early should become a habit so that some people will not get affected in a way.  I was very much influenced of my husband’s promptness and 5-10 minutes delay on schedule is considered a big deal for him, so I always make it a point to keep up with his pace.

As the saying goes “ Time waits for no man!”

We were privileged to have a 10 days Haj holidays so we thought that the house needs to be cleaned to make wise use of our idle time.   We’re almost halfway packing the boxes and are ready to be shipped anytime this week but I know it will be past Christmas time they might receive the cargo.   Anyways, it will be worth the wait!

Excitedly, I woke up early today and started my project clean-up but the problem with me is, I always find that once I’ve started to clean, I won’t stop until I’m done.  Oftentimes, I will be engrossed in de-cluttering the room that I tend not to mind other members of the family because I am all set in finishing the work that I have started.   I will just give detailed instructions to my children and they will carry on.

I am proud to tell that my children were taught early the importance of helping out with chores at home.   We made them learn how to do the dishes, make their beds, set and clear the table and do simple house cleaning.   We do it on rotation basis and so far, till today, they are doing their chores without being reminded or bribed which sometimes most parents do.  They have learned their responsibilities and that started at home so now that all 3 of them are living together in a condominium by themselves, we never worry because we have already taught them  basic life skills which they are now putting into good practice.  We have instilled into their minds the importance of learning to help out , team play and the pride in every work accomplished.

I always work with attitude….  Doing chores with music makes the time goes by fast and before you know it, you are almost done with work.  I never see it  as drudgery so as not to give wrong signals to my children and they might pick that attitude and carry it on with them.   They too learned the art of working with a smile, sorrounded by music.  Every heavy work becomes light because we are happy doing it.   That’s attitude!

So, let us adapt the “let’s whistle while we work attitude”.  It works!

After almost 10 days  Ramadan Eid break and 1 additional Saudi National day leave, it seemed that everybody are not in their best elements yet when we all reported back to work last Saturday.  First day was filled with customary greetings and a welcome feast for all!  The hospital prepared a sumptuous breakfast for all employees and a lot  joined in the “back to office” celebration!

While us in the admin section, we were already bent in doing pending work and have to deal early with numerous request from our cardiac physicians; leaves, visa request, memos….Whew!  It is too many to enumerate.  Oftentimes,  some of our doctors are getting “toxic” (that’s how we call most of them, lol) and it always tested our patience.  However, we were trained to handle those types of people, if  not, for sure, we will be at our  wits end…  Office work is really a challenge especially for us who are working in a multicultural environment.   Imagine our hospital employs more than 7,000 plus employees of different nationalities.

Tough but we believe that communication is really the key!