What Is An Expat?

There are so many kinds:

– Consider the people who act like children. I swear these have got to be the easiest jobs in the world, particularly given the pay. Therefore people have to get into all sorts of not getting along / reindeer games bullshit. It’s like working with a bunch of kindergarten kids sometimes.

– Finding out someone who you went to a lot of trouble to get away from can still affect you here truly sucks. They can’t prevent me from doing what I want to do, however they can make it where I have to go to extra time and trouble stealthing my way in. They give people too much control, and your friendly support drones have a habit of doing the stupidest things to involve those people, when they don’t need to be involved.

I can rant about this, but if my request is rejected, it’s best I don’t say anything else yet. Sorry, I know that doesn’t make much sense to you.

– Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner mortarman is back on the prowl. What a pain in the ass that guy is. Just have a sandwich on your meal breaks like everybody else, pal. The random nature of these things is the irritant. The other day some poor guy picked the wrong time to climb down out of his watchtower to take a leak. Generally they don’t hit much, but sometimes…

Outward Bound

I finally get all the approvals to go. This involves me short-circuiting the process and going straight to the people I need to get things done. Going through the proper HR chain involves about 8 different layers of obfuscation. I get all the pieces collected, and tell travel when I am going. I make this decision on my own, but no one questions me. It’s a relief to get this all in process since not only am I trying to get out of here, I am trying to get out of here on a specific schedule so that I can visit with that special someone on the way out. (more…)

You may have noticed an increase in posting. I was motivated by imminent departure on Tuesday to finish them all out. I’m heading to Bangkok for 4 days, then down to Phuket for 12ish, before heading back to Bangkok for 2 days and then leaving. I am going to lay on the beach, burn my whiteboy body, do a lot of diving, and generally hang out in the water. I’m going to party some, and laze around like a shiftless loser even more. I’m very, very tired.

Soon after I come back, or possibly even before, I will be working on transferring out of here. I’ve had about enough. It’s more an issue of the endless silly bullshit without breaks. I can’t really complain about the work, it’s very easy. Management treats us like a bunch of children. We’ve lost so many “release valves” over the course of time I wonder if he wants to encourage turnover. They certainly don’t do anything to encourage people to stay. I think I am going to check with a friend in Mosul about moving there. That’s up in Kurd country and is reasonably safe. Will be able to get more time off, and some more cash too. Even if it’s just enough to cover the cost of traveling and such on that extra time off, it’s worth it for me. It’s not as it I am a truck driver out on the road everyday. Anyways, I am pursuing other opportunities too, since prison camp life is only so interesting, but I will not say too much about them yet.

Hasta!

People are deserting this place in droves for better pastures. One of the guys was asked by the Project Manager why he was leaving. Obviously, he gave a placating answer. But the question that should be asked, is why would you stay?

Let’s take time off as an example. There will be irony involved, and it will be good. As it stands now we are not allowed to take LWOP, or Leave WithOut Pay. This is the entity formerly known as MWR, which was a 3 day timeout in Tashkent. This was later extended to 4 days, but turned off altogether only two months later. What that means is that you get your time off once every four months. (more…)

Headed out on R&R again, stateside this time. Ran out of time to finish the last writeups. Oh well. It will still happen.

Quick Itinerary:
17-20 Dec Tashkent
20 Dec late afternoon Denver
2 Jan-7 Jan Tashkent again, plus a whoooole lot of travel

Blah. See yall soon!