Moving from Aspiring to Striving- People Want You To Bug Them

In month six of my six-month job, I realized that it isn't poor manners to disturb your co-workers at their workplace. It is poor manners not to do so.

In the idealized work environment today, each employee, (sorry, professional) typically spends their day in front of a computer screen and enters appointments into their agenda, works proactively, forming and extending networks with potential customers, experts and other professionals in the same field. People are very important, but the access to people is difficult. Every other person you want to stay in touch with is hidden behind a set of projects, mailing list tabs and probably even reports to a different higher-up. You want to meet them for lunch and you feel that they have ideas you would like to discuss but for some reason... the task they are working on has nothing to do with the one assigned to you, they are totally in with the bosses while you feel you aren't, they don't value your inputs or... whatever. You end up postponing that lunch with them for more than half a year.

Then finally one day the two of you are the only ones in office, one sunny spring day when everybody else has gone on holiday. You go for lunch with them and realize what a moron you have been: They actually have been waiting to talk to you for the same reasons and were just afraid to disturb you with your "business". You two get along fabulously well and actually you feel like working with them. Some more days pass and suddenly you two become like best buddies at the office, and when you need help, they are the first person you think of asking.

We depend on others for everything. Anybody who claims the opposite just hasn't become aware of the fact yet that, without communication, the kitchen would run out of salt so much more often. You can choose to search for a workplace where you get along with everybody right from the word go. I challenge you to find such a workplace. It probably doesn't exist. Instead you should just get up and start bugging the people.

Bug your professor for answers about some topic you haven't understood. Bug your parents about your everyday life. Bug your friends to come over and meet you. They will love it because they are facing those computer screens too and are yearning for real human contact, and the computer is just a means to get there. They are using their computers, phones and "I'm busy"s to tell you that they wish they felt as important and self-assured as they think you seem. In reality they want to talk to somebody and tell them about their day. So do them a favour and go to all those you work and associate with, and bug them till they tell you to stop. Learn the names of their cats and dogs, do all the Dale Carnegie stuff and take genuine interest in them. I think they will follow suit. If you have no idea how to do your work, perhaps they will. And if they don't, then you can at least make friends with them, and that's another person to share your happiness with.

Dubai

 Cars are what come to mind. The desert sun shines over the land appearing in a typical shape. What colour is the sky here? I think it is white rather than blue. A glowing ball of burning gases that has powered the growth of this city because of the plants it powered millenia ago. This is the energy of the sun in its concentrated form, beeing tapped by humans in small quantities, like an essence. The essence is available here, the bottle of perfume is still full unlike in other parts of the world, where the distance and transport costs force humans to dilute what they have and use it sparingly as though they need to ration it out over a long stretch of time. I had a daydream last night in which I saw the landmark of the city, the Burj Khalifa. Only it wasn't the Burj Khalifa. It was the Burj Automobila. The tip of this elegant tower was topped by a car...

In a desert camp about 30 kilometres from the city, two men wearing Dishdashas (that is supposed to be the name given to the headdress of the Arab men, which might have been a joke played on me) sit on swings playing with their mobile phones, unaware of the absurdity of this scene to a young woman who has come here by weird coincidences from a village on a hill in Germany. She joins them on the adjacent swings with her brother, who likes the idea of swinging high, but he notes that the swings are constructed in such a manner that this would be impossible. The siblings want to photograph the scene which appears comical to them, but they realize that the dusky lighting prohibits them from being unnoticed because they need flash. So they leave it alone and the men leave as dinner is announced, to be followed by a belly dancer's show .

There was a very Islamic geometric pattern of stars and pentagons visible on the walls and on many other surfaces all around the Dubai mall. What do people shop? Mostly, if they walk into a shop on a weekend they are looking for clothes, and the textures that come with them, clothes for the women. Women seek adornments to remain the prizes of men. Men compete with each other to gain power, so that they have a chance to get these prizes. Often this game is played openly, but in my life I have only seen the abstract version. There are many kinds of adornment and power so we have endless varieties of this game. But because I am a woman, the reason why women love clothes is known to me, and I felt pleasure at the sight of a mall dedicated to fashion. It was pleasure for every sense. The floor, smooth and perfect. The lighting does not allow you to miss the daylight. The fragrance of something lingering in the air, the temperature softly soothing your skin. This was followed by a fountain show spectacular enough to attract a crowd every half an hour, every day. I understood why when I watched the jets of water arranged in circles and loops entwining the circles in a most graceful line. The heights of the water jets and the timing was perfectly orchestrated to suit the beat of the song "Time to say goodbye". Beside the artificial water body towers the lean tapering silhouette of the Burj Khalifa. Its lights twinkling in the dark make it appear like a jewel, not loud and attention-seeking, but rather a subtle jewel that stands out in the velvety night due to its unobtrusiveness.

I have a dream of a place where the processed input into my mind from without, each pattern, is directly expressed in my surroundings. The fabric of Dubai is such that this seems within reach. A conscientious human being who is aware of the toil and the struggles that accomplish the construction and upkeep of such a city might come here and feel that every drop of blood was worth it because of the beauty that has been created. Terrible as it sounds, this city is so intoxicating that I can lose my mind in the pleasures it has offered for me in these two days. Instead of thinking of the dozens of workers living in their boxes in an unseen part of the city, my mind seems to be looking for ways to multiply the pleasure and create more avenues to ensnare the senses elusively. Dreams are made of this stuff, and in the mind of this place comfort breeds comfort. I will see if the other side of the coin is hidden well enough. I do not intend to search for it, says my mind... Let the dream go on just a bit longer...