Embrace the Suck

This is my third day in country, which means I should be over the jet lag, yet I’m still shagged beyond belief. Perhaps it’s the sapping and oppressive heat during the day, perhaps the non-stop schedule of meetings and field reconnaissance, perhaps the fact that I was typing meeting minutes into the wee hours, only to get up with the sun to start it all over again. Or perhaps a blend of everything.


Typically, I’d bring three or four others with me on a trip like this, allowing them to pick up the slack as I simply put them in the right places with the right people and let nature take its course. This trip, there was so little lead time, and such restrictive staff availability, that I barely secured a graphics person, who dramatically overslept this morning, which gives me some time to pound out this missive.

Meanwhile, there are 20 projects to scope on three desert air bases over about ten days, and I’m exhausted.

Qatar is our first stop. As with the other two, it’s an unnatural monarchy developed by the west after the War to End All Wars (I’d think a “natural” monarchy would have involve someone, at some time, beating the shit out of any and all comers, thereby earning the title, which could be handed down for generations (at least, that’s how Conan did it)). Qatar hasn’t been caught up in the recent Arab uprisings, probably because most Qataris are satisfied with their lot in life – they typically don’t labor, have positions of influence, and get a healthy stipend from the oil revenues. The working class, however disenfranchised they may feel, are almost all foreign labor, who would quickly lose their jobs and be deported if they caused any trouble.

I’m in that second class, despite the swank hotel and trappings.

If you want to know what Qatar looks like, stand six inches from a tan wall and stare at it. Qatar is tan and sand and rocks. There’s development in the cities, of course, but the countryside is barren, with barely any grazeable scrub. On site, there is half a meter of this tan/sand/rock mix, and then just tan rock until the center of the earth, or perhaps just until you hit the natural gas deposits. The rock is immutably hard and unexcavatable. After the overburden is stripped away, large pneumatic breakers are brought in to fracture the hard stuff, which needs further processing before it could be used as backfill. Bottom line, any earthworks or trenching will be expensive, sapping dollars that could go into facilities.

Meanwhile, it’s going to be 109^ today.

Embrace the suck.