Category Archives: Work

What superjumbo pilots really do

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Within the flying community in which we live, we’re used to our menfolk being around at odd hours, or leaving with a suitcase in the middle of the night. We see men in uniform climbing into chauffeur-driven airport cars, having kissed their wives and children goodbye, and returning home several days later, sometimes more.

But, over the past few months, a new trend has emerged that’s actually taking some getting used to. Every day, I see pilots at the gym, pounding the treadmill, pumping the weights. I’m seeing pilots traipsing after toddlers when it’s cool enough outside, and taking gangs of kids to the pool. They’re at school, too, watching little Johnnie perform in puppet shows and plays; at the supermarket in the yogurt aisle; and at DIY stores, sent there by wives who are either clapping their hands with glee that odd jobs are getting done, or [whispers] engineered the whole trip to get him out the house.

Each week, these men try their best to keep up with their wife and children’s jam-packed schedules. I see them removing their Ray-Bans to wipe the sweat from their brow and fiddling with their aviator watches, realising they’ve been on the same time zone for days and that the gentle hum of the kids doesn’t stop.

It’s been lovely having DH around so much while his airplane is fixed, but I think all the wives of the A380 pilots currently working reduced hours would agree there’s a reason why our husbands do what they do. Pilots don’t like being grounded. They’re not the kind of men who can happily sit round the house picking the fluff from their toenails, while any notion that ‘size matters’ is whittled away.

Quite honestly, I’d say our menfolk don’t quite know what’s hit them. And spare a thought for them: Plucked from a life of world travel, luxury hotels, far-flung cities, restaurant meals and telly in bed, they’re suddenly faced with a whirl of six-year-old playdates, 80-kilometre school runs, to-do lists the length of a runway, mindless errands and dental appointments.

You can imagine the shock.

Bad manners on the roads

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My drive to work isn’t long – 25 minutes or so – but negotiating Dubai traffic can be an adrenalin-fuelled way to start the day.

I hate being ‘extreme tailgated’ – a rude and all-too-common gesture where a car tails you at speed with a 5cm gap, sometimes flashing its lights until you’re intimidated enough to move over. Or tries to sneak round on the hard shoulder like it’s another lane.

Since my route to work is on a two-lane speedway, I’ve had several motoring menaces ‘up my bumper’ over the past few weeks – including a wannabe stuntman today who I was still honking long after he’d disappeared over the horizon. The %@*{xy£x&z!

I mean, if I was walking along, would he come sprinting up behind me, breathe down my neck, jostle me until I fell sideways into the path of a Lycra-clad jogger, then run away at speed? No, he wouldn’t! He wouldn’t dream of it. He might think the metal box he’s sitting in means he’ll get away with it, but it’ll catch up with him, I thought to myself.

Seriously, how hard is it to park in one space? Would you sit on two chairs at a crowded venue – would you?!

My other pet peeves are ‘the weavers’, who hurtle in front of you if you leave more than a five-foot gap, ‘the wrong turners’, who reverse back down exits if they’ve left the highway too soon, and ‘the idiots’ who make right turns from the left lane.

I probably should add that bad driving encompasses all social groups in Dubai and women certainly aren’t exempt. Cup-cake-wielding mums in frilly dresses sometimes start gnashing their teeth with aggression once they’re behind the wheel of the family 4×4. I’m constantly amazed at the honking, the pushing and shoving and the inconsiderate parking that takes place on the school run.

But back to my commute: my other worry is a new speed camera on my route that I keep hearing about. Apparently, it’s causing a lot of controversy for being set at a really low speed, but I don’t know where it is – which means I’m suspicious of every lamp post or road sign I pass. And it’s not always easy to keep to such a low speed when you’re being shunted along from behind.

What I saw Wednesday

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I’m back at work – which feels good and it pays for the kids’ snacks, sometimes even the loo roll.

The view from the office is rather magnificent – blue sea, sandy beaches and the Palm on one side, and the city’s gleaming skyscrapers on the other side. On a really clear day, when we’re not peering through sand, we can even see as far as the next emirate.

As being back at work means I actually get to have adult conversations, I thought that for my Wednesday meme this week, I could also do ‘What I said’ (not much, as it turned out, but slightly more interesting than telling the kids off all day).

Keep in mind that, being freelance, I’ve just had a fairly long period of work famine, so I’m not normally the office idiot. Here goes…

“Umm, how do I switch this computer on?”

“It’s 111 degrees, really? But it’s only the beginning of May!”

“No, I haven’t been sun bathing, honestly. Just running after the kids outside.”

“Could someone please tell me the password again?”

“I know, I haven’t been in the office for ages. I’ve been, erm…” [tried to not talk about the kids too much, or my burst of housewifely spring cleaning, clearing out cupboards, drawers, etc, and being quite proud of the results!]

“Oh, the company’s got a new name. Top Right Drawer? No, Top Right Group. Wow. And L became the editor – in January. I’m really behind.”

“YES, I’d LOVE to do lunch!”

[Via text to DH]: “Sad I’m missing BB’s school assembly. He never told us it was a play they’ve been rehearsing for weeks. Will he know his lines, d’you think?” [*really* wished I was there. Turned out he was a tree and didn’t have much to say!]

[On my way home, to myself]: “Omg, what have they done to this roundabout! It’s completely changed. Where the hell’s my exit???” [while spinning round the intersection like a Weeble with an inner-ear infection]

[At home, to my 6yo]: “Right, BB, time to do homework. Spellings, reading.” [I’m sure I didn’t have homework until my teens]

And so to bed. Because, as much as I’m delighted to be working again, the thing is you not only have to stay all day, but you have to turn up the next day too.

DH’s office in the sky

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Many moons may have passed, but in an entirely different life two countries ago, it was my job in women’s magazines that people were interested in.

It helped that at the time I was seeing someone who ‘worked in computers’. Not many people knew exactly what he did – and nor did I – so people would turn their attention to me and ask questions about working in media.

They loved hearing about the problem page I did for a health & beauty magazine. Were the problems made up? (yes, some of them!). What kind of letters were in the postbag? (some corkers!) Did readers reveal explicit details about their sex lives? (yes, eye-opening).

Then, when they found out I also worked for the Mirror newspaper, they’d be really curious about the stories I wrote. Again, were they true? How did you find those basket-weaving, identical twins who gave birth at Butlins?

I’d tell them about my baptism by fire into the world of tabloid journalism and explain how I had to find a whole class of teenaged school girls, with a willing head teacher, and persuade them to keep diet diaries for an attention-grabbing feature on osteoporosis.

Love, sex, food, fashion and family - in women's magazines, these are familiar territories

The original brief was to have the girls X-rayed – but as this wasn’t ethical (not to mention entering nervous breakdown territory for me), the diet diaries were the easier option. “Just don’t mention smoking,” said the head. And I didn’t – until the article got rewritten so the intro described the schoolgirls as ‘living on crisps and cigarettes’ and the headline blared ‘Junk-food generation: Crippled by the age of 35’. Not quite the publicity the principal had in mind for her fee-paying school.

People also wanted to know about the press trips I was lucky enough to go on. Monaco, Germany, France, Prague, Portugal – the French one involving travelling by private plane to the launch of a nasal douche (a squirter the manufacturer was convinced would become as popular as toothpaste – it didn’t, not in the UK at least!) and the Monte Carlo trip accompanied by a ‘sexpert’ to report on the launch of a condom with an applicator (try keeping a straight face during *that* demonstration!).

But, as I said, this was all a long time ago. Turned out Computer Boyfriend wasn’t just working in the tech industry – he was also working on another girlfriend. We broke up. I was reunited with my teenage sweetheart, who became my DH. We moved to Florida five days after marrying and the rest is history.

Nowadays, given that my work is more of a side show, and the rest of my time is spent attempting to control and entertain two small boys, wiping bums, soothing tantrums and refereeing fights (on far less sleep than when I was working under the tightest deadline as a freelance journalist), it’s DH’s job that everyone’s interested in.

Where do you go? people ask. Do you ever have celebrities on board? (Hilary Swank, Natalie Imbruglia, Gerard Depardieu are a few he’s mentioned). Have you ever had a near crash? Seen a UFO? Isn’t it on auto-pilot the whole time? And from guys: ‘Do you get to hang out with the flight attendants at the swimming pool?’

On his most recent trip to Germany, there were even spectators when the plane came down to land – and people videoing the aircraft’s arrival and departure (the A380 has only recently started flying into Munich and is still turning heads). I’ve watched the video footage on YouTube.

Where we live there are more pilots than you can shake a control stick at, so when we’re at home, it’s all very routine, very normal. It’s when we’re mixing with people outside the aviation world that the interest is sparked. But the thing I find funny is how DH views office life. He’s only ever spent three days in an office – three days – and that was just ‘work experience’ when he was a teenager.

He watches programmes like The Office with the same fascination that I watch shows like Airline or Pan Am. Consequently, he thinks that in officedom we spend our whole time hitting on each other, photocopying body parts and hiding the stapler. When I told him that at work, someone had actually stapled my co-worker’s post-it notes together, he thought this was hilarious.

I’m quite truthful with him, pointing out the realities of office life – because don’t you think that his fantasy version of the 9-5, complete with a hot secretary in a short skirt, office cubicles and a resident prankster, is the equivalent of a cockpit kitted out with a remote control, take-away pizza, pin-up poster girl and fluffy dice?

The Airbus A380 dreampit

Office life versus mummydom

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These past few weeks I’ve been working on a magazine down in Media City – some 10 years too late.

Publishing offices here are full of skinny media types, with trendy clothes, silky hair, and because it’s Dubai, a sun tan, exotic accent and just the right amount of bling.

They’re all so young, I sometimes feel like telling them, “You know, there was a time, not all that long ago, when people didn’t have the Internet at their fingertips.”

“And when we did start getting connected at home, it was dial-up. Imagine that. Bet you can’t, can you?”

“You were alive then?” I imagine the young whippersnappers responding, wide-eyed as it dawns on them I’m from a generation that remembers cassette tapes, Commodore 64 computers and mobile phones the size of a brick.

I cover at this particular magazine during busy periods and I said yes to the work because I know I enjoy it when I’m there and they actually pay.

So I’m reminded again what it’s like to be a proper working Mum – commuting for an hour-and-15 a day in rush-hour, doing the grocery shop with the rest of the world on Saturday, and only seeing the kids at bedtime, when they’re behaving monstrously.

It’s always a nice change. Here are some of the things I enjoy:

• Lipstick and heels (with toe cleavage) rather than jeans and flip flops

• Going to the toilet in peace

• Office gossip – generally, though not always, more salacious

• Still micro-managing the boys’ social lives and well-being, but being able to do it remotely, at my desk eating salt-and-vinegar crisps that don’t get nicked

• Not being interrupted every two seconds and when someone does need something, the request not starting with, “Mumm-eeeee, I waaaa-nt…’ Even the office twit seems mild-mannered and quiet to me.

• Incentives like a slap-up meal for the team with the tidiest desks (we didn’t win)

• Colleagues who don’t hit or bite each other

• Lunch out and even eating a sarnie at my desk that doesn’t come with a plastic toy

• Eyeing up a gorgeous dress and thinking “I could buy it! I’ve earnt the money myself!” then being overcome with absent mummy guilt and settling on something for the kids instead

• Not feeling bad about achieving nothing on my mile-long ‘things-to-do-around-the-house list’ – and instead writing on post-it notes that are dealt with by the end of the day

• Making a cup of tea while chatting to adults at eye-level rather than waist-level and who don’t shout at me, tantrum or cling to my leg

• Sneaking back to the mall later to get the dress

I could go on…. it’s one helluva lot easier than refereeing small boys, but there’s a big problem: I miss them and hardly see them! Talk about the grass always being greener on the other side…

“Have a nice day – without the pay”

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You might remember that a while ago Dubai was thrust into the spotlight for owing some money.

I don’t just mean a maxed-out credit card amount-of-money after too many trips to Karama to buy handbags.

I’m talking serious money – some US$80-billion-worth of debt, according to the press.

For a city used to the heady heights of economic success, it was a massive reality check.

Much of the construction work stopped and schemes such as a refrigerated beach where the sand would never get too hot underfoot and a man-made archipelago of 300 islands in the shape of a world map ground to a halt.

That wasn’t all: A theme park to dwarf Disney and an 80-storey skyscraper with revolving floors and an ever-shifting shape also never came to fruition (Dubai thinks big, you see, so a debt crisis the size of China was hardly surprising).

I really hope they pay up, because BF and I have plans to boost Dubai's economy with purchases like this

While things are certainly on the mend now thanks to some clever restructuring by accountant types, I’m not convinced that everything is rosy again though.

I say this because, for the first time in 15 years of freelancing, I’ve just come a cropper at the hands of the publishing company I’ve been working for recently.

They haven’t been paid themselves by advertisers (including the Abu Dhabi government!) and, as a result, their money’s dried up and they can’t make payments – for my last three months of work!

And, even worse, because I introduced one of my loveliest friends to the company, she too is owed thousands of dirhams for work she lost sleep over while doing some mummy juggling.

I knew something was wrong when they started stonewalling me every time I tried to chase our money. Then came the email, essentially saying, “Have a nice day – without the pay!” Then, finally, the phone call to tell me the sorry story.

What also bothers us is that, at some point, they maybe knew we were working for free – and when you’ve got two kids to entertain, mouths to feed, grocery shopping to do and errands to run, ‘work experience’ isn’t exactly helpful with the whole work-life balance thing. I mean, do we look like eager, just-out-of-college interns? Do we? No, I don’t think so!

If they’d looked closely, they’d have seen a few crinkles round my eyes and a child clinging to my leg.

I won’t name and shame, because I’m really hoping they’ll stick to their promise to pay us eventually, when the cash starts flowing again, but I’m not holding my breath.

Keep your fingers crossed for us! My BF is coming soon (so excited!) and we’ve got shopping to do.

The World Islands off the coast of Dubai and the Palm Jumeirah, on the left, as seen from space. When the World project was launched in 2003, it was hoped that celebrities and the super-rich would snap up the 300 islands. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were even said to be thinking about buying Ethiopia. But now it looks like the project will never be completed.

PHOTO CREDITS: The Purse Page; Mail Online