Back in the early days of my Banking career my Bank which was an affiliate of citibank introduced me to an amazing audit feature called whistle blowing. The main objective of this practice is to ensure everyone, including senior management hold a high level of ethics and morale towards work.

By this I mean not taking advantage of their seniority and the power they hold within their hands. It also is a means of making sure the lower people in the organization are not afraid of their seniors if they are committing a crime or taking advantage of a situation.

Whistle blowing can be used for big and small issues, it is done in a secretive way so as to not harm the blower. It strikes through all management layers one way, to the most senior powers, sometimes jumping them and reporting to the board. This was an amazing tool that helped save the Banks around the world Millions of peoples hard earned money. It was a workers dream come true against corporate crime.

This system does not work when it is taken lightly, and you can guess what happened in Citibank over the past 5 years, not to mention regional Banks. yes the big picture says mortgage backed securities, but look underneath the fat to uncover years of conspiring and bad doings, the end.

Governments have taken this approach in many forms and systems, sometimes whole ministries are formed for the sole purpose of checking on its spending and other related matters. The people are the ones that make it happen, choice is based on knowing the person in charge or simply a friend or family friend, and here we find the root of the problem.

Lets take a walk around the happenings from macro to micro levels and see where this whistle could have stopped the game. On a world level we can tell that many Bankers had a dirty hand in the so called economic melt down. They say too much easy money teaches stealing, hence the famous Billionaire Murdoch and his scam that passed by the commissions and securities like a thunder bolt making them look like preschoolers on a mission. The domino effect of the mortgage & financial over the counter products still haunts us till today after many months of government bailouts and buyouts.

What if they listened to the unpaid piper and his whistles? could have saved them a Trillion or so dollars, but why worry when its tax payers money anyway?

On country levels, we find governments like Nigeria still fighting to make it,The UNited Nations estimates that the population in 2005 was at 141 million, and predicted that it would reach 289 million by 2050.Nigeria has just recently undergone the start of the population explosion due to higher fertility rates.The UNited States census bureau projects that population of Nigeria will reach 264 million by 2050. Nigeria will then be the 8th most populous country in the world. Now that is a serious major explosive problem, the country is rich in oil, but say the word Nigeria and scandal pops up in your face!

Did they kill the people that whistle in that country? seriously?

Take it lower to city levels and look at my city Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, the city that’s different in KSA. The city by the sea, the center and major airport to the two holy cities that millions of people visit every year. We have the worst airports, services, roads, municipalities, the city was usually up for grabs.

The latest disaster that left the city officials paralyzed with shame and disgust on their predecessors and some of their friends and officials. The drowning of innocent 3 year olds and 70 year olds under bridges, is a shocking and shameful truth which we will be all held accountable in front of our maker.

They drowned because someone stole. They perished like cattle on a rampage. They died holding each others hands praying for the great Allah to save them, for they have been betrayed by their officials. They did not have to learn to swim, for swimming is done in a pool or the sea, not on dry land surrounded by mountains. They died because someone chose to build with sewage and drainage money a palace by the beach. While he and his beloved family sunbathed, they sank deeper and deeper into the drainage system he never built.

As my tears form with every part of this paragraph I can’t help but try to figure out what the last thought was on that little girl holding on to her mother who was trying to save her child and drowned in the process, and then the little girl swallows the last water before giving way for her soul to depart her 3 year old body, how can they do this?! animals have more pity for weaker ones, have mercy.

Here the whistle blower got fed up, as he witnessed the people listening dancing to his tunes in harmony and making fun of him, passing remarks like” it only rains once in this country” relax, chill…I wish you chill in hell I say.

Transparency is not for the weak hearted, face your mistakes and punish the bad, give way to the people that really love you, do not play with peoples lives. Next time a whistle is blown I am sure they will all jump up to action, I hope, I wish, I pray.

Going down the micro level, lets look at companies and organizations with thousands of employees. Here the whistler is taken lightly, and his tunes are muted for a while, please let us focus on the business he is told. He whistles some more, then decides to relax and chill. Then when the problem arises, they remove the source of the trouble after the stealing and power advantage is abused.

Here’s the funny part, management knows its mistake, so how does it play it? it continues to make the matters worse. They compensate the senior manager for the remaining time he would have stayed with the company, so he does not make any PR campaign against them! i am actually laughing my ass off! And he is given a letter that states he was a great employee, so another company gets burnt.

Whistle till you can’t take it no more. Don’t fall victim to the corporate bullies in your life, they live wild and fly high, but soon come crashing down, its one end for them, they know it.

Let’s go down to medicine and all its blunders and mistakes on peoples lives. How many hospitals have had their license withdrawn in the last 25 years in Saudi Arabia? Zero! please don’t go telling me about some small clinic on the outskirts of nowhere! Major hospitals continue to use their power and connections to save their own lives while poor people come in for a normal anesthesia for some minor issue, and leave in a coffin! Wrong medicine prescriptions, laid back attitude, wrong diagnoses, many fatal incidents, and still they advertise.

When a doctor whistled once, he was told to mind his own business. Multiply that on a daily basis by one hundred and you can get the picture. Keep it up new doctors, don’t stop till you get enough.

The grapevine is where you hear the stories and rumors of people stealing and others lobbying against someone for his bravery and in your face comments of what goes wrong. You can tell if a guy is stealing by his living standards, he get paid an average salary and lives a Sheiks life! come on people, and here I must say forget the inheritance and lottery winnings, and when the @#*! hits the fan, you say I thought he was living beyond his capabilities.

The obvious is obvious. The truth is always naked. The sight never appealing.

Now for your personal standards, do you check on your actions and their viability daily before you go to sleep? Do you know that what goes around comes all the way back around? let’s make sure our younger generation has a great example to take us through the next millennium without us splattering the books of history with shame and greed instead of honesty and growth.

Sorry for the long note, I had to, and now I feel relieved.

mamdooh.alradadi.com

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

What would happen if an F-16 or a new Jumbo Jet landed in the time of the Romans, or the Pharoe’s or even before or surprised Jenkis Khan during his domination?What would the look on their faces be when they thought their invention of gun powder was the new might and you nuked them? OK that’s mean, how about I take on a whole army with one machine gun and some grenades?

What if I showed them a trick or two with my little toy planes and laser pointers, or stunned them with a Hummer truck, ran them over with a 1940 Panza Tank during one of the stupid wars to take more ground? How about introducing a TV with a DVD player with real people playing a sport which will only be known after another 1000 or so years?

What if I take a photo of them and show them what they look like, how about I introduce the mirror and then shortly after that introduce creams and cosmetics, the Hair brush and comb, the scissors, the electric shaver, the perfume… now you would have to start think marketing here, would it actually be too early for manhood? maybe they liked their stink, they loved their hairy bodies, the ugly nose was fashionable, and so forth.

Now lets dive deeper, if your an average human, you know the house fly, that little pest that comes in and sits on your favorite food or warms itself with your coffee in a cold room, well imagine the technical one made by humans. Now take that and take it only 100 years back to 1910 what do you think will happen to the guys behind the innovations you enjoy today?

What about the small and big creatures we keep finding on our planet? the ones that cant see but have headlights to lure smaller creatures for survival? we still don’t know, but insist on knowing more and more, it never ends, and if it does then you just started to get the big  picture. They say innovate, don’t imitate, irrelevant yet so powerful in its deep meanings.

How about the satellite this and the satellite that? remember back in the 80’s the large formats of videos and arcade games? well how would you like to walk around back then as a teenager with a mobile phone that has it all and so. so much more stuff? What would the fancy cameras and KODAK do when you slap them with a digital photo? And how about that famous TV producer and Hollywood gang do when you dig out of your purse a video camcorder the size of a pack of cigarettes? what would MP3 do to the music industry in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s forget mozart and the other bunch of amazing musicians.

Now when we hold our breath and dive a bit more, i want you to capitalize on this day & ages technological breakthrough’s in medicine and saving people. What would the grandaddy of modern day science Leonardo Da Vinci do with all his breakthroughs, I guess he would be a happy man knowing that he led us so far with so little, great man.

Now lets take a thing we only say WOW! when we see a new model and move on with our day. Back in the early 1900’s or even in the wild wild west days, or take it back a bit to the days of the glorious warriors who rode horses as a mean of fast travel, and you guessed right, drive by them in a Range Rover sport or even a speed bike, forget that maybe just cruise by in a laid back Harley. Would they drop dead in fear?

From telling the time to travel, from our modern day science labs to this computer I type on, from the communication tools we complain about to the small italian espresso machine in my living room, from the iphone to the invention of sushi, take a leap of faith into the future and whatever you have today will be tomorrows joke.

We should be thankful for the wishful thinking of our ancestors and everyone in between, we should thank the thinkers, the believers, the funders, the users, the complainers who made things better, we should thank the pessimists and the optimists, the eager beavers and the thrill seekers, the people who swam against the rising tide, the brave boys that took the lead into the unknown should be recognized not only in text books but in daily newspapers to remind the new generation of what it takes to move on in this mysterious world, we should embed the spirit of evolution in every thing we do, we should ask on a continuos basis: what next?” were do we go from here? were are we headed? and keep moving.

Never underestimate the power of questioning, there is no such thing as stupid questions and ideas, they all mean something, in the end.

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the opponents gradually die out. Max Plank

He never missed a promotion. He was loved by his mother. He was the envy of the competition wherever he worked.He easily made friends. He loved people, even though he was stamped as an introvert. He manages conflict with ease. He had one wonderful thing he did, only one thing, he threw the rest, only kept a few. But it was always one thing.

He was every girls dream. He wasn’t the handsomest, but the most loved. He was a woman’s dream come true. He was the soul of the party. He had his admirers stacked up against the wall when he passed. He blushed.

He manages people with grace. He had minimal enemies, in fact he had none. He helped, gave, he was generous in each helping hand, and then gave some more. The more he gave the more he rose above the humanly daily requirements to a higher ground. He flew above the crowd, his smooth operational skills made it seem effortless.

He was needed. When he doesn’t show up his space seemed like a volcano’s opening in the ground. He lived by the minute, enjoyed the seconds in every minute, he wished there was more to spread his sweetness. Everyone knew they could confide in him. He only did one thing.

He never intended to be like this. It only happened when he decided to start a new habit in his life. He chose wisely. He let go of the bad habits he grew up with. He knew what he had to keep and work on. He knew it was only one thing that would distinguish him from the pack. One thing only. Nothing else.

As the years rolled by, he noticed sudden changes in his surroundings and encounters. He noticed that people were nicer, kinder, better,more helpful, all by focusing on one trait. He had better days, nights and afternoons. He enjoyed endless happy hours, limitless laughter and joy, he had a lifetime supply of new friends, he was being honest and sincere in everything he did, but when asked about the true reason behind his happy succesful life, he knew it wasn’t that.

People call him friendly, but then again who isn’t? they called him helpful, not too many to go around. They saw him as their backbone, their friend in need, their soulmate, their final stop before giving up, he was there, he delivered.

As he laid his head on his pillow at night, just before he called it a day, just before his motors shut down for the night, just before he starts the recharging process, and exactly before his screen started to fade out, he did what he does best, one more time he thought, you can never get enough of a good thing…

He listened.

Man who know little say much.
Man who know much say little.

mamdooh.alradadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

ALBAIK is a fast food company that sells fried broasted chicken meals, it is the pinnacle of success in its industry and has given kentucky fried chicken or KFC a run for its money in Saudi Arabia.

The Ministerial Agency of civil affairs is a government entity that handles the births, deaths and issuance of ID’s & Family ID’s but not the passports. It is the pinnacle of bad experiences.

ALBAIK manages to sell thousands of meals daily across the western region daily in a very affordable, pleasant, value for money fashion. They sell SAR11 meals with their famous unique garlic sauce in record time, every time. They also smile while they work and deliver, sometimes fake, but they smile.

The civil thing place, makes you sweat, literarily, you sweat to deliver your papers, you wait 2 weeks for your ID to arrive from the capital, let me try and contain the issue and show you how they function.

You come in, you take a number to be seen and the requests are written in some kind of maze around the walls, they have 2 information and ticket dispenser workers( who think they own the place)after you have your photos, your file, your copies of old or family ID’s, you are seen by a ministry official, if you are lucky… it takes more than 6 hours of waiting, ok maybe 4 until prayer time, then move on and come back in the morning with a new set of numbers.

ALBAIK: you step up tp the counter, place your order, pay, get your change, look at yor number, notice its far out, have no fear! these are masters of fast delivery and experts of process management, and they fight to get better.

Today:

Civil affairs agency: I arrive at 8:15 am I am already late. The crowds are growing, the noise is growing and the people are wasted. The staff are dead, some still in the process, or pretending to be dead, the numbers front line offices are wearing swine flu masks, very angry faces, extremely angry service people, did I say service( SORRY!).  I am treated badly when I asked a question slightly away from the line( only one guy ahead of me and he was done), I was ordered to get in line if I was to be served.

I asked for delivery area of new ID’s, I get a number 280, I run happily jumping up and down like a 5 year old high on 2 bars of chocolate, really jumping, as high as I could in my saudi gear and head thing, yeeeeha! I’m getting my ID today. Then the shock, the number was 163, that’s ok I thought ALBAIK finishes that number in less than half an hour.

I quickly scan the wide waiting room which can only handle 50 people or so, three windows for delivery, one man standing only. He barely is breathing, let alone moving, he is young, not energetic and extremely slow, just like grandma!

I calculate his handling of one transaction, 10 minutes at least, to deliver a card. I take 280 and minus it from 163 it equals 117 people, only. I multiply that number by 5 minutes, not 10 and the total time I would have to wait on average is almost 10 hours. Not bad for a guy who has only one refined, focused goal in life to get a citizen ID, he would actually be a lucky person. He would only have to wait 10 hours in his whole lifetime, imagine?

Now since we normal people, do have more goals than one, I figured they would shut down for the night, open again in the morning, and still it would not be my turn. And the funny part would be a twist in their ticketing system, valid for one day only!

So if ALBAIK fast food would handle his delivery in 10 minutes per customer, I assure you he would be studied in history books.the actual average time to pas 78 orders today was in less than 25 minutes, you do the math. If a company can do it, I guess a government entity serving people should learn a few tricks, and I bet the staff in that civil place all buy ALBAIK for dinner or lunch.

It only took some old fashioned process engineering and planning, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. If there is heavy traffic, increase manpower! cut the unnecessary work, make it faster from point A to point B…duh!

The irony of the matter is all the people that come into this area of work are doing it for the sake of work, the end user, he is just another number. I accept to become another number, but please do something with the time, I am willing to even pay…. THINK!

Now if you excuse me, its 1.30 in the AM over here, and I have to be at that dreadful place at 6 in the morning, and try to get what’s mine, if I am lucky, good thing I got my sons too so he wont go through the amazing experience I had.

Why don’t they let ALBAIK chicken handle the process for the issuance and delivery of ID cards, just take a visit to one of their offices.

1- Bad location, Bad locations, Bad location

2- Dumb people working like zombies.

3- Not one smile to be seen in a million miles.

4- Extremely bad, extinct dinosaurs working the front desks.

5- Excellent ticketing system that is put there to tell you how slow they are, so they can serve the idiot after you for actually staying the full 6 hours!

Let’s just hope no one from the civil affairs is awake reading my blog, I need to first get my card, then run, and jump in the air like I just don’t care…is this an ID card I’m talking about or the winning 100 million dollar lottery ticket?

And so many more areas that could learn a lesson or two from other areas in life, sometimes even from ants. I know ALBAIK was good tonight, I hope I get in and out in at least 2 hours, imagine someone being happy for being served in just 2 hours.

People; they come in good, bad and disgusting.

mamdooh.alradadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

Looks can be deceiving, right? oh so very true! especially in a judge a book by the cover world, even if they know its wrong. The very people that have the blessing of a different look or background or even nationality have got it right. To name a few examples before I jump into my subject at hand so we can see how far deep we have dug ourself into prejudice and racist brewing while we know it is not right in every religion. Please note that when i put examples or incidents of such nature I am not immune to these social plagues we have to wash off.

Imagine with me the following and how you treat them first hand:

• The Asian( filipino) looking Saudi?
• The Black Saudi CEO of a top 500 company wearing torn down jeans at the mall?
• The Baby faced qualified engineer hired to save a company?
• The  European looking original Saudi that takes your ethnic jokes while you socialize at the local coffee-shop without showing you he understood?
• The worn down old humble lady who happens to be the business tycoon just trying to be herself at the airport economy check in?
• The young techie who happens to own a company of his own at the age of 21?
• The really stinky looking bedouin who enters a Bank and you can’t wait till he leaves, only to find out after your treatment he is sitting on a balance of 600,000,000 Riyals?

That and many examples always get me thinking and worried about how I treat people and how people treat other people. If you are mistaken once or twice then OK, it happens. But if you see yourself drifting with the herd, stop and imagine the opposite and what these poor individuals went through, for nothing but being themselves??

Now my two story heroes are both considered by far Baby faces, both are not older than 34 years, actually one is 29 & the other going 35. Both of them are really clever engineers, both considered street smart, great conversationalists and thinkers, extremely goal oriented and deliver! They are both considered close brothers of mine, one actually is.

As one was growing up in his later college years he was taken for a kid, a high school kid, at one time one of my friends met him and asked him how school was, I think he added  you cute little darling” my brother smacked him a quick one” finished engineering school this year”. He has always been in situations where he is considered a young boy, with his no mustache droopy eyes face I can see why, add some freckles and a dozen little beauty marks and your never gonna guess!

He would make me crack up when he is talking to any service provider or sales man who take him lightly and try to give him the usual BS answers only to be challenged in the very business they operate, he comes armed with powerful knowledge and admirable intelligent questioning.We have had our laughs when people come to him in the office and find he is my right hand.

After many years of proving he was and older version of that 80 model, he woke up one day and found he had a gift! That gift was a Baby face, he has by far taken down many people on a trip to la la land with his cute acute looks. Being intelligent has got nothing to do with looks.

Some of his victims include major Banks, major companies, major hospital staff, major businessmen and women, older generation know-it-alls, service providers gone crazy, hotels, some of my friends,me.

Today he manages his own business and is frequently head hunted for other jobs, god bless that baby face!

The other is a more street smart engineer, with a face of a young teenager closing in to his first digit after twenty.He also has a warm and gentle smile, very welcoming face, not the aggressive ugly kind, he was an A student with all his play and brat like attitude, he comes from a fine family and is well brought up to the highest standards. He has pursued his way to the top of the corporate ladder and has managed people by the hundreds at a major top 50 company in Saudi Arabia.

He makes me look old, very old, yet he makes people fall prey to his looks, not knowing what  kind of person he is until I spill the beans on his age and professional background, he is also a great listener.

Beware of the silent ones I say, for they know more than you in many cases. He is up against a world that judges his professionalism by the number of years he carries and not by his performance, he proved them wrong and continues to fly, up that is!

Me & him enjoy the faces we get when his age is revealed, and then they suddenly all change the treatment he was getting, as if to make up for that bad first impression, funny.

In his early years he must have faced the faceless judges of society and had his fair share of fun on their behalf. The way people respect him is a force he threw upon him based on his capabilities, knowledge and great treatment to people, he deserves every bit of success he will endure, for he is good, I respect you both.

So what he looks young? so what he does not look the part? what is the part? did you figure it out in your little mind and made prejudgement’s on how people should act and look, should their disadvantages be blamed or favored? what is right Mr.right? the way you will be when you make it? sorry, they figured success out before you did and have taken that slot, find another idea and another victim to pick on.

Make no mistake, baby faces mean Grown up business.Here is my final say on people with baby faces: I think they are very lovable people, with humongous hearts and feelings, they know what the others don’t, they listen well, they forgive fast, they love life, they live love, they understand to be understood, they are well educated people, they seek solutions to everyday problems without the fuss, they thrive on education and have very few friends, it s only because they want to be themselves. They can be friends forever, they always are there when you really need them, they did not mean to take advantage of their disadvantage.

I guess I never had that option, or did long ago, and lost it… if only I could, I would, I would go out on a mission to find every person looking down on me and make his day. I also guess that’s why I don’t have that Baby face charisma, its only for the people who have baby hearts too

Watch out for those Baby faces, one out of ten is considered lethal, otherwise go ahead you might have made a brother from another mother, guaranteed!

To all the Baby face people in the house, Massive respect!

mamdooh.alradadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

The bald hair specialist who promises to see results from that wonder hair product is just an example of the misplaced people going across the tide. Imagine a bald man/ shaven headed man advertising head & shoulders? unless it’s that powerful and promotes hair loss in 3 days, I think it would be a killer ad( No hard feelings take a look at my pic).

I heard this story from a girl that knows a lot about hair and dropped by the local dying perfume giant chain, headed to the area for hair products, asked for it, and to her surprise, there he was Mr. Glow in the light, bald & shiny hair specialist boasting that the product has great and fast 3 day results. She knows that it takes 6 months for the hair to actually see results from doctors and other real life experiences, so in his face she points out to the egyptian clueless salesman “ if it was that good, how come you have a shiny scalp?” WHAM! BAM! in your face!

Sorry Mr. Slick salesman, but she is right and you and your company deserve it for taking customers for a ride, his only response to her was “ You are a very in your face person” yes she is! and I thank her, if only we did this more often to these dumb companies, that even after losing their business continue to not learn from the best, who actually know what consultative selling is! and really know something real and worthwhile about selling to clever customers.

On another note, what do you think of the people that get upset of the tiny noises that ants and little devices make, they get annoyed from that forgotten little tinker that an alarm is making, the sound of little children playing in a plane, the buzz that is coming out of your full blast volume in your ears?

I know there is a slim chance that the voices are intimidating and can cause some discomfort, but not to the extent that it causes the person to stay unstable till the voices are silenced! I think its the mix between the voices in their head with the ones coming from that little toy in the other room that are causing the damage. Relax, take a deep breath and start to see what you can do to release your anxiety and internal issues gradually and slowly, learn to block unwanted noises, learn to chill and take it easy, especially when in the company of others that comfort you, focus on the big picture, and don’t fret the little stuff,

What about the people that insist you do it based on their own internal ideas, ideas that never saw the light, like when you have a crush on your school teacher or next door neighbor but never had a chance to tell them, and when they are happily married or connected, you hate them! Give me a break! It takes two to tango, never forget that.

Well what do you know? people continue to fall victim to social ass kissing day in day out. One day your washing cars and people tend to admire you but still look you with that disadvantage eye, the other they find you their manager at a financial institution, sucks, I know! The way they handle it makes a world of difference.

I swear I have witnessed people deliver high levels of fake kindness and two faced personalities in less than a few month’s that it makes me wanna puke! what’s wrong with good old people liking for who they are and what they stand for? would that make life easier or more complicated?It’s OK to respect someone for their accomplishments, but lets wait till they accomplish something and bare me with the fakeness and don’t go telling me its social practice at its best, it simply disgusts me, even if I get caught doing it, its cause I am washing it out of my system!

And one for the road, before I head off to work. Enjoy the moments of life to the max, each and every moment is a gift others don’t have, others needed but never got, you have it, so go out and make  killing, ace that test, grab that job, win that contract, get that raise, love that girl, propose but don’t leave those precious moments slip from your hand while you sip that coffee at the local coffee shop listening to those losers, leave them in the dust and move on out of there!

The quality of your life is the average of the quality of the people that surround you, surround yourself with the best, you deserve the VERY BEST IN LIFE!

mamdooh.alradadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

It is very easy to identify low life rodents working in corporations hiding between the 20% that actually do the work. They tend to take strange forms and postures camouflaging themselves with whatever pretend work they can get their hand on.

You know the story of the rock that stayed put for a thousand years and turned into a diamond, this is not it. This is the story of the 80% of useless workers that just fill company chairs and offices moving day in and out for that pay, without the work. They occupy space that someone needed badly and just needed a chance to prove herself or himself, and in the process gets paid for his efforts.

These same critters make it from one place to the other after being caught for doing nothing! You see, sooner or later someone will come from another department or company and see what the previous management was not able to see or just didn’t need the hassle. When someone just fakes his work experience or capabilities, and enters into a medium, low, or high paying job he never steps forward and declares he cannot, on the contrary, he tries to get away with another month, or year or even in many cases a decade!

So when they are found, they are expelled one way or the other, and they are told to leave the place in a month or three. This is unacceptable practice, you give them more money for doing nothing? you let them contaminate the few good people? You let them use company property, time and email to find another job?

What we practice is wrong on a macro level. If one staff member or manager is worthless in one company, the next should know about this useless employee and get a paper that states the reasoning of his release. But systems and easy going attitude lets the bad take the place of the useful and able many.

Here when a staff is fired for stealing or bad behavior, to my astonishment I find him getting a paper that states he was of great ethics and standards. So he is soon working for another company awaiting his chance to repeat his stealing or low productivity standards and in the process affecting the whole economy.

We should stop hiding work fugitives and display their faces and names in a certain way that gives the other companies( even if they are competition) a better chance to hire capable and higher talent than what one company considers trash. In the end, we will all benefit from a better economy where the strong make things better and services raise with it the whole industry changes positively.

In the name of unions and fair treatment companies have come crashing down to their knees, economies have suffered, whole Banks declared bankruptcy causing chain reactions affecting other Banks and companies to fall, you never know it could be one of your own that you let on the loose coming back to haunt you.

As I watch and walk the corporate and service walls of our country, I see empty headed bodies roaming and complaining about work that they never touch, or think about. I see waste upon waste of corporations time being wasted on stupid subjects and wasted hours covering silly subjects such as football and food. I also know from the malls filled with teenagers and college grads that they need a chance and have lost the willpower due to the companies refusing to hire because they have enough mistakes inside their walls.

Measurements should be enforced to weed out the garbage producers and attract in the capable many. Teams should be formed to identify superior managers who can spot the good, the bad & the ugly and take action. Hard working people should be generously compensated for initiative and creative solutions, this shows dedication and a strong love affair going on. Bad employees should be warned and managed or removed and forgotten. Salaries of these bad employees are in the hundreds of millions, and we have millions needing jobs. Work & reward should be the focus, rising company stock only happens when the bees are busy doing what they do best, make honey.

A simple success formula is to identify the performing and profitable areas in a company: Copy what makes it perform, cut the bad performing areas, paste the copied. Make sure you identify the areas that these people will be heading for before you release them, and be professional and let the other competition know about it, so they take them under their responsibility, maybe they can change them when they know their past?

We all have children or brothers and sisters, relatives, friends, people we don’t know personally but know they are good. Shouldn’t these people have a fair chance? Should they not get a better working environment so that they thrive instead of dive head first and join the dirty dozen? Why do we insist on the wrong? why do we insist on saying it was done this way when I joined back in the days, let them figure it out? Why not look at the bright picture when we separate successful from failure?

• What would our economy feel & look like if we managed to stop hiding ignorant, selfish, useless refugees and let the new blood rush into the economies veins and nourish its stale and aging form?
• How much will we save when we hire right and ignite the bright young ones? How far will we fly with these strong and healthy giving wings replace the battered down old and rotten engines?
• When will we see people taking the reigns of power in companies & all related work places and making things happen?
• Why do we accept it for others & refuse to own the problems?
• When will people understand the binocular far away effects and stop looking at it from a microscopic today view?
• Who is sitting next to you wasting your time, company time, money, other peoples jobs, your teams success. your future?

I say we all stand tall and remove the bugs from the harvest, take care of the crop, and wait for the future to unfold on the hands of the bright capable many.

A site foreman had ten very lazy men working for him, so one day he decided to trick them into doing some work for a change.

“I’ve got a really easy job today for the laziest one among you,” he announced. “Will the laziest man please put his hand up.”

Nine hands went up.

“Why didn’t you put your hand up?” he asked the tenth man.

“Too much trouble,” came the reply.

mamdooh.alradadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

Do you use a public bathroom away from home? The one at work? The airport? The fastfood chain? The local mosque? The mall? or are you one of the thousands that just decides to keep it in till your home? A dirty subject but someone has to point out the health and service dangers lurking in the background.

As I approach the toilet in Manchester train station I notice a small que with a coin machine that opens the door “ 3 pounds per visit” WOW! I thought, nice!! before I understood anything about the pay per toilet thing, I was discouraging it due to human rights issues and the mere fact its only human, and you shouldn’t need to pay to go!

But as I picked up milage on both travel and age, I came to realize the brilliance of such practice, simply awesome I say. When I got the change in place and got my entrance to the toilet,I noticed two cleaning ladies and everyone entering respecting the cleanliness of the premises.

Synchronized people, entering, finishing, cleaning in a clean environment and happy for the service provided. No one throwing tissues on the floor, actually finding tissues, available toilet paper by the dozen( the good stuff, not the one that evaporates), soap is plenty, dryers are powerful and by the dozen, no smells, just clean antibacterial detergents and warm atmosphere.

Everywhere you go in Europe there are people taking care of the toilets! It simply makes me feel sad! In one study I read they placed a small picture of a fly( sadly aiming practice for men-sorry girls, men tend to do that) in the urinal bowl so people would stop splashing all over the place. The trial in Amsterdam shciphol airport reported more than 60% less splash rate than before the darn fly! If people go to this extent in serving the bathroom customers, shouldn’t we start to at least come to where they were in the 70’s? and not compare our self to the stone age era?

As you arrive at any of the 3 airports in Saudi Arabia, and you just have to go! you make your way to the very few little rooms that have a semi worn down picture of a woman or man to relive yourself. As you enter thinking it is a rest room as they say politely, you tend to try and hold your breath for as long as it takes, watch out to not touch any visible or invisible germ colony. You also attempt to open the door of the toilet without any hands or feet, I have been known to have opened doors with my butt! Suddenly the 7 hour airplane toilet seems wonderful luxury(even after meal time/ wake up time on the flight).

The look, feel, smell, lack of everything is just amazing. The workers look at you waiting for you to look everywhere for tissues, even in garbage to wipe your hands, then they ask you in a head shaking manner “ do you want?” as they hold out the forbidden fruit of the moment : TISSUES! And you have to tip them for the stinky atmosphere, the smells, the new add on bacteria and germs who you will introduce to your family and friends” let me introduce to my new lethal friends, I picked them up at the local airport toilet, be nice, smile & say hi…come on give them a nice, big hug!”

This is the second ugly face they see of our country when foreigners arrive for the first time, after the airport service, look & feel and treatment, our fascinating, sate of the art, germ in your face, unforgettable aroma, airport toilets! Never have I been amazed at any of the local toilets, except for the very few five star locations, few!

The standard for toilets, is to let the GM of the airport use this one, the one that passengers use and airport staff suffer from, and not his own private washroom. The managing director of the food chain should have his toilet in one of the locations, Banks CEO’s should use customer ones too, and so on.

I know its a dirty little secret only users know of, but we have all faced this and had no time, no idea what to do, no intention to raise such a filthy subject to a company, what will they think of me? THEY HAVE TO WAKE UP AND RESPECT PEOPLE!

Q: Would the manager of whatever firm invite people in his home or his family to this stinky place? and wait to see the look on their face when they come out? I thought so!

Just like Rain happens, natural needs are met, we exhale & Inhale, going to the toilet is one of them! and it should be high on any organization or country agenda, it is service you know, wether we admit it or not!

People will pay to get a better and cleaner environment. If everyone only paid 1 riyal( 30 cents) for each toilet visit, then companies can get better chemicals, better workers, more workers, a daily supply of toilet good paper, maintenance and dryers would all work, people will repspect each visit.

While European countries face their problems head on and give awards to the best toilet in a country, we aim to see who has the filthiest toilet to go unreported and survive without water and toilet paper and other BARE necessities. It is a very strong statement in terms of service and quality, and the issue, or should I say Tissue, will be raised and used

Looks like I need to drink less fluids and eat nothing before coming home on my next flight, at least till I get past any airport facility.

Our mission is to represent the interest and aspirations of ‘away from home’ toilet providers, suppliers and users of all types and to act as the catalyst for change in the pursuit of standards of excellence in all areas of public toilet provision and management.

British Toilet Association

p.s. the picture above was awarded to the tourist toilet available at the Tower of London where the Jewels are displayed

mamdooh.alradadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

If you did not hear, its time to hear now. The country(Jeddah,Saudi Arabia) drowns every year, every single year for the last 20 years or more, yes! 20 years, not 4 or 7, 20! and guess what? its not the governments fault either. The governement as with many projects has priorities and when it locks into a serious one, adheres to the laws of nature and makes way for natural disasters.

When you look up Natural disaster, you will never find rain there. You will find Volcanoes, Earthquakes, mud slides..etc. but never normal rain! I am not refering to the heavy rains of Portland that last 9 month’s a year, or the London rain either, I am talking about a couple of harmless rainy days good for the crops, good for cleaning the streets, or drowning the people in Saudi Arabia’s streets.

My city, Jeddah and its rural areas all seem to be a sitting duck each and every year when the rainy season arrives and hits our land. We pray for it to come, and when it comes we curse the living daylights out of it! We have been a victim of corruption at the municipality levels for many years now, then there is the ministry for water and sewage or whatever that is, each and every single year they get away with it. People drown, houses sink, cars submerge and go deep street diving, people barely make it alive, large trucks and SUV vehicles sales soar, old beaten down ones dissapear. Families lose everything, helicopters try and save what they can, and I hear now they are looking for proffesional divers to save people in BRIDGES AND TUNNELS! I thought diving was a sea activity?

We manage to supply 40% of the world oil like no other, the government appoints capable people who said they could deliver, only to find them uncapable of delivering basic human needs in any city like Sewage systems! I mean if a country that has a much lower income than Saudi Arabia by the Billions, shouldnt that country drown faster than us?

The sewage and drainage systems seem to be a hot topic only when the rain hits the fan, otherwise forget it! You leave your home head to work, come back and its drowning. You leave your products in a storage and you come back its gone. You leave livestock and its gone. You leave your 100,000 dollar cars in a garage and its gone. You can even leave your pets and children and wonder if you ever come home and find them alive!

Is it not time we move Natural rain to serious disastor status and handle it with extreme importance and priority before we lose everything of importance to pure ignorance? Is it not time we started hearing what the other people have to say and not the ones that handle municipalities and sewage/ drainage systems that never saw the light, I do believe the very people that mangae these areas live in well preserved areas and not the same areas that the poor ones that drown do.

I, like many Saudi’s living in areas( A very famous area in jeddah city, actually close to the municipality building!) that suffer from this yearly pouring problem, do dream of a day when I actually enjoy the rain instead of cry and wait for it to stop and go away like a bloody toothache! For toothcaches we have dentists, for pouring rain we need to pray and hope our prayers are heard and the rain pours only on the people that caused this problem, and see them trying to get out alive and watch their cars and homes drown, the very same municipality/sewage/drainage people that we dread, the very same drainage minister, the very own construction people that said it was done, and went to sleep in their fancy cottages in switzerland. Even when the tunnels were made and we were happy as it saved time, but sadly took lives! I hear the King God bless him, gave a special honorary award to a young man who saved a couple drowning by going deep diving in the tunnel to pull them out!!

If the governement paid for it, it is no longer their problem, they trusted people to perform and deliver what they were paid to do, now it is time to check your scores, and your scores are a soar sight for eyes, you see problems like this don’t just evaporate, they grow to larger magnitudes, and kill people.

Here comes the Rain again, pouring on my head like a new emotion…. Eurythmics.

p.s. I am actually writing this while enjoying the Rain in London, knowing I can still move,people will go to work, like every other day and the city will not drown to some clown who forgot to unplug the bath tub water stopper!

 By far its time to learn how to dance in the rain, and not make like an ostrich and hide your head in the sand everytime it rains.

mamdooh.alradadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

They used to gather every weekend, we used to accompany them by force, they used to have fun as sisters and brothers with their whole family, they were my aunts and uncles. We were young children then, only observers as they say, we only digested and filtered what we wanted to remember and threw the rest to the cats.

• They used to have fights every week, and meet the very next. We have the same fights, we meet after months.
• The wife has daily battles with her husband, makes up the next day as if nothing ever happened, and does it again & again, we choose the easy way out and divorce one another.
• People took peoples words to the Bank, today we take them to court.
• Simple was king back then, complicated is the way to be today.
• Schools forced us to learn back then, garbage in garbage out, schools are starting to listen in on humans real needs for progress.
• Controlled directed information was then, today its up for grabs, its what you do with it that counts.
• Cars were Bigger, gas thirsty, now they are mean and lean, tiny and cute, trying to free themselves from gas and ready for a Sun tan instead.
• Managers were Bosses then, today they are part of the team.
• Pepsi and Seven up were icons back then, now its back to basics and natural, how ironic?
• Sell, Sell, Sell was the way of yesteryear, service, service, service is what it is now.
• Expensive travel and phone calls are replaced with train fare air travel and hours of free air time to chat on the phone.
• Post cards are replaced with email messages and sms mumbo jumbo.
• Music was really made by real people then, today its electronic most of the time, love was the theme back then, its hard core house and brain draining techno today.
• Business was done by long traveling days and exploration, today its B2B without leaving your office.
• Movies were about wars and horror, now they are about funny and run away from reality more than ever.
• Marriage is taken lightly and faster today, it was a life sentence back then, one you wanted to serve the years.
• World domination and cold wars were replaced with strategic political takeovers today.
• Reading was written in finely binded books, you can have the same today in PDF ebooks.
• Food was wholesome, today its the latest version of fresh fast food.
• Mom and pop stores filed the world, today they are replaced with things they call Mega Malls, and Hyper Markets with cheaper items.
• What was handsome and pretty back then is not so these days, the measures have changed so fast no one knows what to expect.
• Women were the backbone and never reached the highest ranks in the past, today men are aware of them eventually taking over their male dominant world for the last 20 centuries,
• Children were fragile in the early years, now they are forming into a stronger kind of children driven by the new fast lifestyles they live today.
• Money was cash and coins, today its electronic.
• Travel agencies were a big deal and actually the only deal, today they are replaced with expedia.com & hotels.com.
• Learning was on campus, today in your pajamas at your mac.
• American muscle cars ruled the planet for more than 70 years, today the far east and Europe are bringing the American car companies to a melt down, They are now starting to listen to their customers like the Japanese did in the 70’s on American soil.
• People had no choice on what to watch except for their countries broadcasting arms, today you can watch a program airing in the US within 24 hours in the Middle East.
• Music was made on LP’s and Cartridge tapes, today its Mp3 electronic music. Movies were on big rolls of film today on DVD and computer files.
• Computers had 128 mb memory, today phones have 4 GB’s of internal memory expandable to 8GB and more.
• Photos were taken and developed in 24 hours, now you can take the same one 100 times and edit it, upload it to the net in less than 2 minutes.
• In the old days the ugly people or so they say, were labeled that for as long as they lived. Today you walk into a clinic and change your look as many times as you wish and have that pointed nose you always wanted or those hairs you longed for after you lost yours.

Back then for me to write to you all everyday would be a killer task, today I write to you in my towel ready for my midnight shower before I sleep and just press publish and its yours!

If back then is now in a few days or years, have a great then & now

mamdooh.alradadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com