For the last few weeks I’ve been working my head off on almost everything concerning the office. So basically I’d return home with figures, telephone numbers, faxes and emails playing in the background of my mind and driving me crazy. Then I have my usual housework, some cooking, and well, some TV watching if I was lucky enough to keep my eyes open.
When I have my French course it’s a lot WORSE. I finish work, try to gather what’s left from energy to move my feet and reach the closest bus station, where I never find a place to sit neither while waiting for the bus nor when I finally get inside the bus. So I spend an extra half an hour standing, sometimes an hour –all depends on the traffic- and finally I reach the center, in which I need some kind of miracle to be able to focus and keep my sleepy-tears from falling down. And because I’m dead tired, and have no idea what the hell my class is talking about, it’s a piece of cake to laugh at anything, yet terribly hard to hold back a laugh.
Anyway, I really had no private time to enjoy myself or rest, and no matter how long I sleep I always feel I need more.
The problem is that all the hard work I’m doing is mainly for one client visit who’s coming from outside Tunisia to visit us for the FIRST time. That’s why we wanted everything to be even more perfect than they usually are. And for this very reason my boss pointed out more than once that on this day we both have to be present on time ready for a presentation and a respectful welcome, and that he’ll be picking up the client, i.e. I’ll have to be in the office before they get there.
Now this day happens to be TODAY! Therefore, yesterday my boss reminded me and I was like: “don’t worry at all, I’ll be there on time”.
The thing is I’m not always late, I have to be on my desk at 8, and mostly I’m on time, or I’m there 8:15, which is ok, since I don’t go out for my lunch break. But TODAY the alarm rings and I don’t wanna get out of bed! Worse than that is I didn’t feel guilty about it, I just wanted to have extra couple of minutes to sleep. I mean what could I possibly do? I had NO POWER to stand up. Anyway, I finally get out of my bed, go wash my face, brush my teeth and prepare my small lunch meal, and then my husband calls out: “Eman, we’re late it’s 08:15” only then I knew I ruined everything and that I’ve put myself in a very embarrassing situation.
I knew my boss will be there at 8:15 with the client, they’ve sure arrived and I’m not there!!!
On our way to work my husband goes like: “Isn’t this your boss in the car in front of us?”, I was happy first that he didn’t reach the office yet, but then I realized that we’d be there in the same time and that this will mean a very big problem, anyway, my dear husband did his best to take shortcuts and be faster than him, but still the minute we reached the building there was no sign for his car, which has two meanings: he either reached the garage, or, he still didn’t reach the office. I wished it was the second guess. Anyway, I get inside and THERE I find the lift pointing to (-1) which means the garage, I realized the boss and I will meet in the lift WITH THE CLIENT, which will be so damn embarrassing. Anyway, I had to do something evil to rescue my reputation as a punctual and professional assistant, and all the thanks go to my husband who never stops tricking me. The thing is one day my husband and I were out and when we reached home I suggested he uses the stairs in an attempt to encourage him follow a healthy lifestyle, and since I was sick that day, I needed to rest, so I took the lift and to encourage him I said: “let’s see who reaches home first”, he smiled and went. And I had to stop in EVERY DAMN FLOOR, because my husband pressed the lift button in EVERY DAMN FLOOR to make sure he’d get there first.
And although it really got on my nerves then, but today I thank God he came up with this idea, because it rescued me. Yes, you guessed right, I had to do this to the boss and the client. I had no other choice. I called for the lift in (0) the ground floor, then ran to (1) pressed the button there as well, ran to (2) did the same, and finally reached the office, turned on the lights, the pc, took off my jacket and there was I ready on time to welcome my boss who was totally embarrassed of some “crazy, annoying, irresponsible, naughty little boy” who has called for the lift in all floors 😉 and the client who was happy to find a reliable employee taking care of the work 🙂 I guess being a naughty little boy every now and then can really save the day 😉

My job puts me in the weirdest situations. Best part is that I have to “manage” one way or the other, to deal with different people of different levels, different cultures, and last but not least, different LANGAUGES!!
Lol, yep, languages, the key word to my stickiest situations. When I was a kid and started learning English as a second language, I was so damn excited and thought: “I’m gonna be special, I can speak English”. Shortly after that I realized that it is great to speak English fluently, but you can’t be special when almost all people around you speak English. And because I adore something called languages, I thought I should be specialized in a new language in university. Back then the only choices open were to learn either French, or English/ French, or German, or English/ German. And because the third language taught in many private schools was French, I though German would be new and special, and why not prove my English skills at the same time? So I ended up double majoring English and German. I was SURE three languages will unlock all doors of communication and working in future. It was until I got to Tunisia that I knew I was WRONG 😛 people speaking French and all is something I’ve already talked about 100 times before, but it isn’t what made me realize that 3 languages are not enough. It was this job I have. I was hired for my good English in the first place, and was assured I wont need to use any other language except for Arabic. But from day 1 I figured out that French comes as free gift with the package of my post, lol, it’s ok because I can handle myself and my course is helping me improve. But the disaster is when I need to contact an English speaking fellow in somewhere like MEXICO for example. Now the problem is not with the person himself, but in how to get to that person when no one else around speaks neither English nor French nor German!!
I had to call a Mr. Lopez, I dialed the number and there someone picked up:
Him: Hola! ———————– (I understood nothing)
Me: Hi, this is Eman, from … Tunisia, I need to speak to Mr. Lopez please.
Him: hahaahahaha (laughs) ———————– (once again I understood no word)
Me: Sorry, don’t you speak English?
Him: No , No English (hahahaha)
Me: Parlez Vous Français?
Him : Hahahaha, ———– el español, —- el inglés es secundario,——-
Me: Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
Him: hahaha,——– el español, ——
Me: Mr. Lopez!! Lopez!!
Him: Señor Lopez———-
Me: ok forget about it, bye.
Him: hahahaha

After hanging up I go to the manager and explain the disaster, he was shocked that such a big company has not a single employee that speaks English! But he made it clear, that it was urgent and I have to get to Mr. Lopez in any way.
So I had to figure out a way, and I had no other choice than this “very smart” idea, lol, well, I went to freetranslation.com, and opened dictionary.com just to double check if words are somehow the same and if the syntax is right, although no online dictionary could give a 100% accurate and correct context, but better than nothing right! Anyway I wrote sentences that might be said in such a situation with all answering possibilities -that I could think of- , created a word document with the conversation possibilities and called again:
Him: Hola! ————–
Me: Hola mi nombre es Eman, yo soy de Túnez, yo necesito hablar con Sr. Lopez por favor.
Him: hahahaha (first time I know why he laughed: my terrible accent), El no está aquí (which means he’s not here)—————— (couldn’t keep track :P)
Me: Cómo pueda yo lo alcanzo, es realmente urgente? (how can I reach him, it’s really urgent).
Him: ———————————- (not a word matched any of the answers I had) and then he went on :—————————-
I know he thought I knew Spanish, so I explained: Yo no puedo hablar español, por favor lo hace corto y me da su número de móvil (I can’t speak Spanish, please make it short and give me his mobile number)
Him: no ninguna señora, usted habla muy bien (no no madame, you speak very well), and then he went : —————————–
Me: QUE ES SU NUMERO DE MOVIL ? (WHAT IS HIS MOBILE NUMBER?)
Him: ————————— (said the numbers in Spanish)
Me: gracias y adios (thank you and bye)
Him: hahahahaa, adios, —————–

I hung up and my boss was like: “ Few minutes ago you had a problem speaking to that Spanish guy and now look at you!! You never mentioned you can speak Spanish!!” , I replied: “yeah, because I never spoke Spanish”, and then explained the trick. I really remembered my favorite movie: “One Fine Day”, I’ve always loved that movie, but I never thought I’d ever be put in such an embarrassing situation, not only this, but also the names me and George Clooney were looking for were the same: “Lopez” looool. Anyway, after laughing my head off, I finally called this Sr. Lopez, who spoke fluent English. I explained the urgent matter and he said:”I will get back to you with the information you need as soon as I reach the office, which is 3 hours from now, because it’s FIVE in the morning!”.
It was till then that I realized why there was not a single English speaking person to help me out. The one who replied was the guard!! And he doesn’t need more than Spanish to communicate simply because he’s not supposed to get calls at 5 a.m.!! I was embarrassed like hell. And well, it’s not that I only disturbed the guard and the poor guy in his home, but I also wasted my time translating and putting phrases together!!!
Ah, c’est la vie, if we don’t make mistakes we’ll never learn, and if we don’t piss off people, we’re never human 😛