July 27,2023

 

A quiet day at work. Something brewing with one of my direct reports. I found out via the grapevine that he was in the GCEO’s office for 2 hours yesterday- unbeknownst to me. I wonder what the discussion was and why I was not involved first. Anyway, perhaps I am overthinking it. I will ask tomorrow in my regular catch up. 

Meanwhile, I submitted a business case proposal for a bit of a mini re-org I am proposing in my shop. I don’t know how much of it will fly with HR-and going by recent experience, I will not be surprised if there is pushback- atleast partially.  If it does go through as proposed, it will mean I really need to hire one particular role as soon as possible- who has to be a UAE national in the first instance. I saw some resumes earlier, and I did shortlist one decent resume for an interview. Hopefully, will receive some more. Ducab has most of the senior management positions filled- with the exception of the Chief Technical Officer. Seemingly, a gentleman from Germany was appointed but he arrived for a day to the office and promptly chose to decline the offer. Perhaps he could not handle the July heat or the food in the canteen, or both. I find the food in the canteen very passable. There is an Indian and Arabic section. The Arabic section also has one or more pasta dishes every day- aside of a rice and meat based staple, kababs, fish and so on. There is humus, tabouleh and fatttoush most days. I eat there more than the Indian section – which has very mean biryani on Tuesdays. The best part is there are chapatis- which you can eat with dal, a vegetable curry and a meat curry. It tastes pretty good and does not seem too greasy. The only issue I have faced thus far is that if you get there late- say around 1.45, often in the Indian section there isn’t much left. Since the meal was essentially free, there really was not much to complain about.

I realise that I got lazy yesterday- by not going for a swim. This makes it 6 days on the trot that I did not get my exercise. I need to make amends today. Should hit the pool by 8.30 PM latest so I can get back at a decent hour. In other non-work news, my car is still at the mechanics. It was all fixed yesterday and was on the point of being delivered in the evening. Halfway home, the driver called me and said the AC was not working and so he was going to take it back. And so he did. But I haven’t heard much of an update today on the issue and when I can get my car back. I can manage tomorrow but that is about it. The family returns on Monday and the wife will need her car back. My car is now officially old and gives me grief from time to time. One way forward could be to replace it with a new one- trade it in or even sell it first. But I just don’t want a car payment. If every 2 or 3 months I have to pay the equivalent of a car payment, it still works out better financially. I just hope that I face a Force Majeure like I did with my Toyota Corolla in 2002 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I almost did, as I had a side collision in a parking lot with a car that was reversing. It is not clear who was at fault. Since the damage was not massive I decided not to claim insurance and get my premiums up. I am glad it was not “totalled” this time but sooner or later my luck will run out. 

I saw today that my younger son had gotten a haircut while in Kolkata. My elder son is vehemently opposed to haircuts at this time. I tried to tell him that this particular Dasgupta gene is not amenable to long hair- I have tried it too and the density is too less to give it sufficient body to be styled in any particular way. He insisted to keep growing his hair and I am letting him have his way on this for now.

In one week we go on a holiday to Japan. A lot of travel in a short while, not particularly relaxing but the boys are looking forward. Both me and the wife have been there before, while in Singapore. If nothing else, look forward to enjoying cooler climes and lots of Sushi, Sashimi and Ramen. Perhaps we would visit Disneyland in Tokyo- my older one has been to the one in Hong Kong but the younger one hasn’t been to any. I am particularly perturbed by one leg of the itinerary planned by the wife which purportedly takes us on a 13 hour train ride north of Tokyo to Furano in Hokkaido Island. WE stay there a day and are back again to Tokyo- another 13 hour train ride. We will need to see about this as I don’t think this has been quite thought through.

Lest we forget, there will be a lot of travel to India this year. During mid-October for my parent’s 50th Anniversary- just for a weekend. And then gain in December for a cousin’s wedding. I also think I will need to travel for work reasons twice- once to India and once to China. I have had a fairly long stretch of no work related travel- more than a year – ever since I moved to Manila. I did travel that year but only to visit my family in Dubai- no business trips. I think I will make a few here but nothing remotely close to how much I would otherwise be travelling if I stayed put at my previous employer.

Another longstanding item I have been putting off is a visit to my dentist. She insists I need to pull out a molar. I have been resisting for a year now.