Vegetating in Araby

Days one and two (of the five which comprise this trip) were spent updating substantial documentation regarding the project at hand. I sent by email a draft of my Day One output for review by my client. Although there was no feedback, there was still work I could do on the second day, by the end of which I was satisfied with the overall result. I invited my client to review this version and he promised that he would do this latest on the morning of Day Three at his office before we all went off to the meeting.

But a phone call advised me that he would not be coming into the office and that we would meet (for the first time in almost nine months) at the headquarters of my client’s client. And, no, he had still not read my documentation!

My client’s client responded favourably to my dog-and-pony show which was simply a ‘viva voce’ summary of the stuff I had written in great detail and significant length about, for the sake of argument let’s call it broccoli (you’ll see why later).

At the imposing conference table, on our side four of us flanked my client, two of our guys, the creatives, seemed a bit bewildered by my broccoli specifications. But the guys on the other side, three honchos in kandurah and an ex-pat Yank nodded and agreed that we all looked forward to taking things to the next stage. The outfit they represent is what could be called a major player. Deep pockets? Yup. Aggressively expansionist? Yup. Cross-platform and Web 2.0? Yup. Content hungry? Yup. Cutting edge technology and service provision? Yup. Check-marks in a lot of boxes… it is a lot!

So, all in all, a big opportunity for my client (who also nodded happily when I limned the delights of broccoli).

Then the complete afternoon was spent in meandering discussions with our creatives who insisted that we should be offering my client’s client not broccoli but cauliflower. These discussions were far from conclusive and exceedingly tiresome and it was a blessing when it was time for Iftar for them and I could retreat to my canteen for my dinner and my reading. It was agreed that we’d all start again early on the morn of Day Four to see how we can reconcile matters; the fact that broccoli was now off the menu needed to be made palatable to my client’s client who really seemed to have found it to their taste.

But the morning of Day Four has now passed without anyone involved, apart from your humble blogger, turning up.

In the meantime I’ve twiddled my thumbs, made a few posts and, alas, come to the conclusion that in point of fact the best solution would be spinach. But I’m not going to put that solution on my client’s desk until the small matter of remuneration due since January has been resolved…

The price of cigarettes has gone up by 50%... outrageous! Twenty Marlboro Light now cost just over one Euro.

Cue Pink Floyd...

Money, get away!
Get a good job with good pay and you're okay.
Money, its a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, four-star daydream,
Think I'll buy me a football team.