Eid Mubarak! The celebration has started as the three day holiday begins tomorrow. This is the celebration that occurs 70 days after the Eid that occurs at the end of Ramadan. It is marked by gift giving and sacrifices. I have studied up on sacrifices, the way it works here is that you go to the lamb market, and pay for a special sacrificial sheep, and then the company, ritually kills the animal, part of the animal is given to the poor. There is a little stir about the high price of the sheep this year. They cost about 900 Dirhams ($250), up about $25 since last year...inflation gets everyone...
The Eid holiday has given us a couple of things, we are closed on Monday, so I get to enjoy a true day off, and Sunday is going to be a 7 hour work day....Making it a restful weekend. Business is absolutely booming. We ended up having a bust out month in October with over 9.7 million is sales at 117.7% growth over last October. That has been followed with business of around 3 million this first week of November, yes another record. We are struggling to get orders processed and keyed correctly, and shipped. The "IT System" is still not keeping up with our needs, maybe we will get it solved before we have a critical meltdown. The account Executives are very frustrated by lack of support in getting their job done efficiently. Time is ticking to solve some of these issues, while our growth is not giving us a chance to catch up. For the first time, I actually feel like we have a chance of making the goal of 96.1 million in sales this year, I just got to keep leading, without pushing...and the talented group of Ex Pats that we have recruited will get it done!
I went to church this morning, and was very pleased to get to see Sandy has returned safely. I finally got to give her that face to face apology that I owed her, and in the sanctity of church- she was kind enough to forgive me, now if I can just go awhile before I have to apologize again for my social Faux Pas (yes Mimi, I had no idea how to spell that one).
Rodz has come down with the dreaded "sand lung". It's that respiratory infection that all of us seem to catch regularly, but especially in the fall and the spring. I think her depression over her job search has made her susceptible, she seemed like she had turned the corner last night in getting better. Last weekend, I needed a new belt to replace my worn out brown one. So before we went to Fuddruckers, Rodz took me shopping. We went to KM trading first where the prices were very low (to me) but so was the selection. The belts were about $10 there, we didn't like them, but Rodz said they were expensive...hmmm, so I asked where should we go to find better deals...Rodz said "Green House", Ok, this may be boring, but we headed to Deira and went to greenhouse. It was absolutely packed with shoppers, heavily dominated by Indians and Fillapeno's. (did I actually spell it right?).... Well. I bought 6 pair of dress socks, a nice brown belt, and a pair of swim trunks (for the hotel). Total bill....45 Dirhams ($12.25) and of course, no sales tax...lol maybe She and I will return to bargain shop again. Still no job for Rodz, but has a couple of interviews scheduled for next week, so keep your fingers crossed...
A new feature for this "tired" blog...what's in the newspaper? Since I get a free paper at my door each morning at the Holiday Inn (at least two more weeks...sigh) I am enjoying reading the "Gulf News". The writing is sometimes lacking, but the angles of the stories are fascinating. This week there was a statistical analysis of people injured and killed in auto wrecks. It was linking nationalities to the accident rates. So the reporting goes like this, so far in the first 9 months of this year, Indians (no surprise in this corner) had the most injuries and casualties at 365. 23 of those died, and 328 were men. Locals, or as they are known "Emiraties" had the second most with 264, then came Pakistani's with 242. Somehow I think I could make this into a contest for Nick, Bob and I to wager on....lol.
Well, heading to the mall to meet Nick and Mimi for lunch (new pizza place), then an evening out with my gal. Several of our Reps are out of the office on vacation. Kelly is in England, Magy and Ceren are in Turkey, and Muzzy is headed to India. Reem is licking her wounds form her adventure in Israel. She was visiting her Palestinian Grandmother in Israel. Well, the Israeli's confiscated her papers, and Jordan would not allow her to return to her homeland with out the proper paper work. She now has a new appreciation for being an American Citizen. The Embassy came to her rescue, and a week later she was out of the country and has now returned to work.
I have started riding the bike in my Holiday Inn gym. So I am rather stiff, hopefully I can keep motivated to keep working out....got to live long enough to enjoy the prosperity I am hoping to enjoy before I leave....God willing, I will blog about another week of my life here in The Middle East!
No comments:
Post a Comment