Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Wednesday November 22nd. 9 days to go till opening ceremony
Sometimes it's a bit surreal to think there is still 9 days before the opening ceremony. We are all tired and lacking sleep and yet the start is still far in the distance. I know too well though that once the games start, it's a real blur and the whole games period (here it's 15 days) is over before you know it. Another phenomenon is that there is this wave of energy that flows in. Things are ramping up, new arrivals, workers, broadcasters, press agents, athletes etc. and when the flame arrives it comes with this absolute electric buzz. By then, you don't need any energy as you can ride the wave and it does absolutely carry you through the games almost miraculously. It happens at every event. We are all in a time warp right now. Days go by, weeks and we have no real sense of time. What seemed to have happened a week or a month ago happened just yesterday or the day before. I can't believe my first volunteers only started a week ago.
Shaza a lovely Sudanese woman comes in for an hours training yesterday. She has been working with Elena at the Main Help Desk (in the entrance) because Elena needed someone with English skills and possibly thought I might as well manage with no english speakers. But, we will share her and Shaza will be with me three days and with Elena three days and so on. It's such a pleasure to train her in record breaking time and to have her anticipate and bring insights. The difficulty in training non english speaking staff is that I have to speak what I call " Theatrical English" which is making lot's of gestures, repeating a lot, finding new ways to word things, making jokes along the way and it's not that easy. However I address each new volunteer with the same energy because I do want them to have the best possible time here and to have a once in a lifetime experience.
In that respect I do not want to refuse anyone who wants to work regardless of their language skills. It's just another challenge. When Abdul Latif comes in at 3pm he voices to Maryam, a staffing coordinator(who speaks both Arabic and english) that his english is not very good and he doesn't know if he can help me much. He is Syrian, 24 years old.
"Does he want to be here?" I ask Maryam and she tells me he does but is just worried about his english. So I tell him through her that there is no problem. I have many volunteers who do not speak english, most of which never want a day off. I tell him I can train him and he won't have any problems. And as I do, I realise that he is quite bright and understand more than he gives himself credit for. I love to make them laugh and so in the space of 30 minutes, he is totally at ease and happy to be here.
My standards have changed. Now, I've decided that if I have one english speaker at every shift then I can make this work. Plus I'll be here at least from 7am to 7pm.
Yesterday we had an issue. Overnight the DG (Director General) and the DO (Director of Operation) both Qataris decided that no one accross any venues needed international access on their landlines. So without consulting anyone asked QTel (telephone company) to restrict all the lines which had been unrestricted. Of course the only unrestricted lines were those who really needed to be. I have five fax machines at the Work Room Help desk which are for us to fax overseas for the journalists. Many journalists use their own laptops but faxing still is very popular for some countries in Asia as it was for African countries when I did the Commonwealth Games in 2002. So, yesterday the head of Media services and the Head of Media and Broadcast spent their day trying to explain that these services were absolutely critical to the operation.
What a joke. We should have our services back by lunchtime today hopefully. This is a good example of a few decisions which have been taken over the years here. With apparently no logic some services have been removed from areas where they were critical and installed in place where there is no real need for them because the DO and DG have other ideas. And precious time is spent trying to just reestablish the basic logical processes when there shouldn't be any need to justify them.
Nice and cool on the Corniche this morning. It may well be long sleeve weather by the time I leave.
Sometimes it's a bit surreal to think there is still 9 days before the opening ceremony. We are all tired and lacking sleep and yet the start is still far in the distance. I know too well though that once the games start, it's a real blur and the whole games period (here it's 15 days) is over before you know it. Another phenomenon is that there is this wave of energy that flows in. Things are ramping up, new arrivals, workers, broadcasters, press agents, athletes etc. and when the flame arrives it comes with this absolute electric buzz. By then, you don't need any energy as you can ride the wave and it does absolutely carry you through the games almost miraculously. It happens at every event. We are all in a time warp right now. Days go by, weeks and we have no real sense of time. What seemed to have happened a week or a month ago happened just yesterday or the day before. I can't believe my first volunteers only started a week ago.
Shaza a lovely Sudanese woman comes in for an hours training yesterday. She has been working with Elena at the Main Help Desk (in the entrance) because Elena needed someone with English skills and possibly thought I might as well manage with no english speakers. But, we will share her and Shaza will be with me three days and with Elena three days and so on. It's such a pleasure to train her in record breaking time and to have her anticipate and bring insights. The difficulty in training non english speaking staff is that I have to speak what I call " Theatrical English" which is making lot's of gestures, repeating a lot, finding new ways to word things, making jokes along the way and it's not that easy. However I address each new volunteer with the same energy because I do want them to have the best possible time here and to have a once in a lifetime experience.
In that respect I do not want to refuse anyone who wants to work regardless of their language skills. It's just another challenge. When Abdul Latif comes in at 3pm he voices to Maryam, a staffing coordinator(who speaks both Arabic and english) that his english is not very good and he doesn't know if he can help me much. He is Syrian, 24 years old.
"Does he want to be here?" I ask Maryam and she tells me he does but is just worried about his english. So I tell him through her that there is no problem. I have many volunteers who do not speak english, most of which never want a day off. I tell him I can train him and he won't have any problems. And as I do, I realise that he is quite bright and understand more than he gives himself credit for. I love to make them laugh and so in the space of 30 minutes, he is totally at ease and happy to be here.
My standards have changed. Now, I've decided that if I have one english speaker at every shift then I can make this work. Plus I'll be here at least from 7am to 7pm.
Yesterday we had an issue. Overnight the DG (Director General) and the DO (Director of Operation) both Qataris decided that no one accross any venues needed international access on their landlines. So without consulting anyone asked QTel (telephone company) to restrict all the lines which had been unrestricted. Of course the only unrestricted lines were those who really needed to be. I have five fax machines at the Work Room Help desk which are for us to fax overseas for the journalists. Many journalists use their own laptops but faxing still is very popular for some countries in Asia as it was for African countries when I did the Commonwealth Games in 2002. So, yesterday the head of Media services and the Head of Media and Broadcast spent their day trying to explain that these services were absolutely critical to the operation.
What a joke. We should have our services back by lunchtime today hopefully. This is a good example of a few decisions which have been taken over the years here. With apparently no logic some services have been removed from areas where they were critical and installed in place where there is no real need for them because the DO and DG have other ideas. And precious time is spent trying to just reestablish the basic logical processes when there shouldn't be any need to justify them.
Nice and cool on the Corniche this morning. It may well be long sleeve weather by the time I leave.
# posted by AdeC @ 9:28 PM 
