Jordanian Efficiency

Least everyone think that it's all fun and games when I'm on my own (after all that Catherine does my life pretty much bites without her!), I provide the following glimpse into my days. While it certainly is not one of laundry, water shortages and screaming kids, it does tap the level of one's sanity. These are the things I deal with on a regular basis. I have changed some of the names of the organizations, not so much to protect them, as this day has just become a blur in my mind.

This happened last week after I dropped off the family at the airport. We had to return the SUV we rented, and Firas (nephew of the owner of our house) is the one who put it together for us so I stopped by the house on my way back to the city. I had to go into work because I had committed to be there and put in a few hours. This being the Middle East however, there is no rush or feeling of obligation. Everything is in shah allah. Now that is a gross oversimplification, but it works sometimes. After stopping at the house, doing a walk through to see all the changes, and meeting some new workers, Firas mentioned he wanted to go to the water ministry and get some things taken care of before I went to work. Being fairly confident that he would honor his commitment to return the car by 1PM, giving me plenty of time to get to work, I agreed. After all, it was only 11AM or so, I had plenty of time. I had forgotten the beauty of Arab efficiency.

Our first stop was at the Jordan Department of Water Affairs. Now, this should not be confused with the Jordan Ministry of Waterworks. After going inside the building with the big sign above it, and explaining our situation to the first worker we found, the individual became confused and had to call someone else (NOTE: the person to help you in the Middle East is NEVER the first person you talk to). We waited. After a time, someone came down to tell us that we were in the wrong place, we needed to go to the Jordan Ministry of Waterworks. It was around the corner. So, we took our wares (really just our documentation), and walked around the corner to the Ministry.

Now, in the United States, for the most part when we go into Federal or even State buildings, it’s usually pretty nice digs, security up front, a nice information desk to point you in the right direction, and people with fairly clear job responsibilities (NOTE: if you take the opposite of each of these, you will be in the Middle East). As we walked into the Ministry Building, I noticed the stained marble floors, the hanging ceilings with water marks and gaping holes, and the broken lights. We walked through some semi-guard who gave us just a nonchalant greeting as he swatted away a couple of flies. We walked through the ‘metal detector apparatus’ looking thing, set it off (not even getting a glance from the ‘security guard), and continued our pace as if such a thing was irrelevant. There was no official welcome desk or directory, so we popped into an office and asked specifically where to go (see first NOTE). The individual there, looking a little perturbed that we would bother him from such important duties waved his hand in some vague direction upward very noncommittally (NOTE: a wave in the Middle East is worth a thousand words – and can often be interpreted a thousand ways, none of which commit the ‘waver’ to anything). From that, we proceeded to the second floor.

On the second floor we visited three offices before finally getting to the ‘right’ one (do you remember the first NOTE?). Finally, we found the right office, unfortunately however, the person we needed to talk to was in a meeting, and so were invited to wait 30 minutes for him to be done and then he would be able to help us. Firas seemed very satisfied that we would be so lucky to catch him so quickly. So, we snuggled into the nice school desks provided for us in the hallway and settled in to wait. We had some nice conversations and watched the worker bees looking busily like there were gathering very important honey, had tea offered to us by the tea boys (NOTE: each floor has its own tea boy to get the employees tea, water and coffee), and looking hopefully up at each passerby. Finally, saw a group of men exit a room at the end of the hall so Firas quickly ran down there to talk to our ‘friend’. He was actually no friend as he told us he was too busy to help so we had to go to an engineer that worked for him. We got a wave to the location of the engineer (are you reading the notes?) and set off to find him.

Once again, we had to ask around before we finally found him (NOTE: if you don’t know someone’s name, just use Mohammed and then give a job description, it actually gives people a point of reference even if the name is wrong). Once we began talking to this engineer, it seemed as if we had won a popularity contest because everyone on the floor came to help. Perhaps each of our ‘directors’ and ‘wavers’ wanted to see the fruits of their labors, because they all hovered and seemed to self congratulate that they were the ones who helped us find the right person. Further, all of the ‘busy bees’ suddenly became a willing audience to the unfolding spectacle and unfamiliar sight of someone working and problems being resolved. The issue at hand seemed to be that we needed permission for the contractor to connect the interior sewage to the main. In order to do that, we had to look at the plans from the house connections. Now, why the contractor didn’t do this is beyond me, but we had come to fight the fight, and we would not be defeated!

Just at the moment when victory seemed to be ours, it was snatched from us. There was some question about where to find the plans for the house, so Firas did have to call the contractor and actually handed the phone over to the engineer (turns out they were friends) and they had a nice conversation. After about 15 minutes of everyone helping us out and giving us advice, we came to the conclusion that the needed paperwork was located at the Jordan Division of Public Water Services (NOTE: this should not be confused with the Jordan Department of Water Affairs or the Jordan Ministry of Waterworks). So, we gathered our documentation back up, waved, hugged and kissed our newfound friends who waved us away as if we were boarding the Titanic and proceeded out to the car. We then drove down to the City Center to find the Jordan Division of Public Water Services.

Arriving at the Jordan Division of Public Water Services (and going through the same customary ‘security precautions as noted above), we found people streaming into two main buildings. We flipped a coin, and strode into the first one only to find it was a mass of confusion. I felt like we were back in Idaho watching the cattle mill around a water trough after a hard day’s loafing around. Firas strode up and started talking to a nice lady (NOTE: lines mean nothing except to people who pretend to be civilized, and are not needed when a question is all one needs to ask). True to form, we received a name, and description and once again the non-committal wave to the other building.

In the second building we found to my surprise, working queues with numbers and signs. I was incredulous! However Firas moved forward to the front of the queue to inquire who we should speak with. He mentioned the name and job description received in the first building, and lo and behold, got a wave behind him to some office space where a group of men were in a meeting. Sensing blood and not wanting to wait for another meeting to conclude, Firas moved into the back towards the meeting and began talking to the man. The man seemed very western and professional and my hopes began to rise. Alas, as the tide breaks on the beach, so my hopes were dashed as we got the wave and the comment that the records we needed to have were in another building (not the main two buildings but an ancillary one). However, we did get even more information that if the records weren’t there, we would have to go the Ministry to get them.

We now began the walk to the ‘undiscovered’ building. To our dismay, we found that the general wave received actually indicated three more buildings. It was like we were in Let’s Make a Deal and had to choose which curtain we wanted to go with. I was voting for just taking the cash and running, but Firas was insistent that our quest not be abandoned when we were so close to finding the Holy Grail, er, I mean the paperwork. We would never have made it through Let’s Make a Deal because we went through the first two buildings like dominoes only to show up at the third building which was the most non-descript of them all.

In this ‘outpost’ we found a lone engineer behind a desk who didn’t want to deal with us. It was tea time, and no one likes it when their tea time is interrupted to do something as ordinary or regular as work. He insisted that he did not have what we wanted and that we needed to go back to Muhammed (remember my note above?). Firas stood his ground and won the skirmish as the engineer finally started to do something. The engineer’s eyes lit up however as he indicated to Firas that unless he had the file number he wouldn’t be able to get it. I am sure I heard him mutter ‘Check’ as he settled back into his chair and resumed sipping his tea and looking at his cell phone. Firas, not to be vanquished or humbled, called his friend to get some number to provide to the engineer. This also begs the question, why didn’t the contractor do this? Firas suddenly found new energy as he received the file number from his friend over the phone and fired it at the engineer. Our friend almost spewed his tea when he heard the file number. He then used the deaf strategy, asking 3-4 times what the code was before finally setting down his tea and moving to the file cabinet. I then saw why this man was so reluctant to go the ‘File Cabinet’. It was piled high with greens, reds, browns, blues, yellows, all shoved this way and that with no rhyme or reason. There were loose papers and folders, none of which had any type of order or structure. At least, for the untrained eye that is. I was awed by the efficiency that our engineer friend was able to wend his way through the labyrinth of piled documentations to procure this one, small green folder that was the end result of our quest. I was reminded of the mouse quickly working his way through the maze in order to get the cheese, whereupon arrival, gorges himself on his victory. The victory in this case was that we did not have the permissions to view or use. That’s all the information he gave, then he sat down behind a desk and ignored us. I know that this time I heard him mutter, “Check mate” as he picked up his tea, smirked and began poking at his cell phone. Firas tried yelling at him or getting his attention, but he just ignored us. It is a similar experience for me as I get this from Catherine while she’s playing Solitaire and I’m trying to crack some joke. Fortunately then, I was able to calm Firas down, and we returned to our quest.

We made our journey back through the three buildings to the man who had forwarded us to the engineer and informed him of the situation. He gave a disgusted look and told us to follow him. We went to the first building (the cattle mill place) and Muhammed (not his real name, but changed to protect the innocent) found another young man. He talked very quickly to that young man about what to do (by this time I didn’t really care where the sewage went, we’d just tunnel it downhill for all I cared) and so we now followed this young man. He went back to the third building, and got the file that the engineer had pulled out. A few rough words with exchanged with the engineer, and we made our way back to the first building. As I mentioned about the first building, it was a mass of chaos and people. We waited in the mosh pit for the young man to do some things. I saw him taking the file to four different people. I don’t know if it was for sign offs or instructions, but each one had to say and do something different (all with the now familiar wae to some other direction). Finally, he gave us a wave to meet him outside. Once there, he explained that everything he needed was there, but someone would have to go out to the site to review and then sign off. It would then come back to him and he would give approvals. He said it would be about 2 days.

Firas was very excited that we were able to get things done so quickly. I was relieved, and glad I could make it to the office in time for closing. Another beautiful day in Paradise.