Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Are You Going To Apologise To Tim?

So, a couple of posts ago I shared with you the random email that was sent, completely out of the blue, telling all DAGOC employees that we now had to work 40 hours a week instead of 35 (which we were anyway) and that instead of doing what a normal company would do and adding 1 hour to each day, it was now mandatory to work the 5 extra hours on a Saturday.

Well, since then, the story has continued to get stupider... Already, we were told that we could no longer take any holidays, but this was extended to include the ten "casual days" that we get (that I had been saving) a year. Meaning that the most anyone can ever have off in a row is one day. Obviously they didn't feel like this was restrictive enough so they then decided to also stop giving out Exit Permits, which are required to leave the country, until after the Games.

So basically, we are all now trapped in the country for the next four months. This is the country where you drive for four hours and you have covered every town and beach North, South and West of Doha.

You would think that a little bit of common sense would prevail in enforcing these new rules but you would be wrong. My friend, Mark's sister is getting married in a month, he has worked out a way that he can fly to Australia and back for the wedding and only miss two days of work (would have been only one before they extended the working week). Do you think they will let him go, of course not! Random as!

This weekend is the last weekend that we have the Saturday off and they will be issuing Exit Permits so, as you can imagine, we are all going away while we can. I am heading to Bahrain with a group of people, although two of them nearly couldn't go...

Andy was told that his exit permit would not be approved because, 'What if something happened to him while he was away?' Dan was told that they wouldn't sign her exit permit because, 'There are two many people in her role already going away this weekend.' After spending the last few days pleading their cases, it finally looks now, a day before we leave, like they may be able to come. That is if immigration process the exit permit in time.....

Another quick story, following the new rules, someone thought it might be funny to write an email from the Games mascot Orry apologising for the ridiculous restrictions and signing off as S-Orry. As a result, the entire network was turned off for the day while they scanned the system to work out who was the person that first sent it. Once they worked it out, they put him on the first plane out of the country. Only catch is, they caught out the wrong person and when the right person owned up to it, they told her to stop covering for him. Why cannot I not help to draw parallels with an episode of The Office when Gareth INVETIGATES in his INVETIGATION AND MEETING ROOM. Love it!

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