What a wonderful day that it turned out to be. Remember I have been really missing my kids lately. I have this incredible screen saver on the Mac, which takes my photos from iphoto and creates a mosaic, so hundreds of pictures create a mosaic which then morphs into the actual photo. I find myself watching that for long stretches of time. It is mesmerizing and entertaining. The pictures are mostly older, when I was still married. It makes me long for earlier times. The pictures are quite sentimental. I never went through my photo album to delete pictures of X. So she would pop up on the screensaver both individually and as a family every once in awhile. It was so reminiscent of earlier times. I hated to delete those pictures because it felt like I was deleting a part of my history that is/was very dear to me. Maybe by deleting them, I was convincing myself that I was permanently erasing her from my life. I go through these periods where Im still delusional that someday my family might be reconciled. I get these feelings especially around the holidays. But then I just have to do a reality check and remind myself. You see, I was very happily married, probably the most happily married man you’d ever want to meet. At least that is what my friends told me. I have always loved life, and having a family was the very best part of a privileged life. That is why the divorce came as a such an absolute shock. I fought against it with everything that I had in me. But it takes two get married…one to choose to divorce. So I couldn’t win. I really think Im over the marriage part, that’s why it was easier to delete the pictures finally. I should have done it a long time ago, but better late than never, maybe. I am so excited to love again. I’d probably be in love already if I didn’t have my standards so ridiculously high. Im always dating out of my league. Im waiting for God’s absolute best. I know that if I wait for God’s perfect timing, he’s going to provide the perfect partner. There may be someone special on the horizon but its too early to tell.
So I had a meeting today that could have turned very ugly. Remember project #1, that was completed about a month ago. We got the verbal approval both on the phone and in person that it was approved. We got the emails, saying it was approved. We even got the Certificate of Completion, with a stamp making it absolutely official that it was completed and approved as per the contract. They even processed a payment order/check request. They duplicated 1000 copies of the project and distributed them at the premiere which this DVD was an integral part. So it was as done, as done could be. Then two days ago I get a phone call saying, the payment order has been stopped because they want the project redone. What?????? I’ve already made 20 re-edits on this. I had verbal and written confirmation that is/was completed, now they pull this. I was pretty upset. But I took Khalifa to the meeting. It got pretty heated at times, but Khalifa calmed me down, then he worked his Arabic magic. A westerner isn’t going to win a lot of arguments in this part of the world, truth and justice not withstanding. Khalifa calmly told me to sit back and relax. Then he took over. The first thing he said, We’ve been here for 20 minutes, why haven’t you offered us Tea or Coffee. Arab hospitality is a huge thing. This put the client immediately on the defensive and the argument swung in our favor. He continued, the first thing I do if someone comes to my office is that I have my office boy offer them hot tea. Why do you not respect us enough to offer us that. He went on and on about Arab/Bahraini tradition. The negotiation shifted far away from the product or issue at hand. It was a brilliant negotiating move. Totally Arab old school. Suddenly the confrontation swung back to our favor. We wound up with a compromise, but a compromise that we can live with. Its just another lesson in doing business in the Middle East with Arabs. Im so used to the West, when I’ve had so many verbal agreements which were binding with me and the client. Not so here. Everything needs to be in writing, stamped, and sealed. Hopefully, Im going to stop making these mistakes.
OK…so that was a bad situation that turned out pretty good. I was very proud of Khalifa. We went on to have our staff Christmas party later. We closed the office a bit early and Khalifa and I paid for everyone to watch The Christmas Carol in 3d. Keep in mind, many of the staff don’t see movies in theaters because of the expense and they certainly haven’t seen the new 3D digital technology. Plus, very few were familiar with the Ebenezer Scrooge story. So it was a wonderful time for everyone. We went to Tanya’s house which was decked out with holiday cheer and we ate and we ate and we ate. We are a very close and friendly office. We topped off the night with a gift exchange, the one where you can steal gifts from each other. They had never played before I introduced it to them at the last Christmas party. So they have been looking forward to playing again for the last 12 months. Everyone brought a very nice gift and so the stealing was intense and a whole lot of fun. Lots and lots of big laughter. Everyone had a wonderful time.
So that was my fourth Christmas party thus far, and I’ve been invited to three more. God is good. It was just a great great day.
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