co durham boy

Because i don't put up with rudeness , lateness and an incompetence and because we work in structured efficient environment ?
Try building a multi billion dollar international airport any other way then i'll take on board your comments .

There's 43,000 men on this project , luckily enough i only have around 600 to worry about , being late has a big impact , you can't manage a project this complex and of this size any other way i'm afraid .

Norm_uk

Nice try, except if you ask Japanese, Chinese, Americans, Germans, French, Belgians, and many other nationalities they'll say exactly the same thing...and many will use much stronger language.

But let's pick on British expatriate workers experiences of bad timekeeping from many nationalities (including their own in this region) and accuse them of colonial arrogance instead

N.

Norm_uk

Perfectly said.

You can imagine the disaster it would be to have a NASA that puts men into space and half the ground control, safety engineers, technicians and thousands of support teams can't even get to the office on time.

There is a reason why some cultures/countries lead the world in getting things done and others are being dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world...and timekeeping and time management is one of them.

N.

Oyibopeppeh

Well put.

In a previous job (not in the UAE), I had a local senior staff employee who invariably turned up for work between 9.30 and midday, everyday. When questioned regarding his tardiness, he simply shrugged his shoulders and blamed the traffic.

I ended up putting him on the clock-in cards along with the junior staff and within a week he'd packed his bags. Good riddance.

Paracletus

Was working in Kenya for awhile, setting up a new powerplant. Had a small team of locals to work with, but one of the guys decided that it was ok to go drinking excessively on school nights. Found him asleep behind a turbine in the engine hall. He promptly got the sack. Did not get too much more mischief to deal with, as the bottom line was they knew exactly how precious their jobs were and how easy they were to loose. But unemployment is a slightly more severe issue in Kenya than the Gulf..

But Kudos to you Co. Durham Boy on the mobiles..Wish more people took your approach to this in meetings. I've thrown people out of meetings because they were texting.