Friday and another visit from the thought police!
Friday!
What we have here is the winding down of a hectic week. Month end completed, monthly reports completed, debtors reconciled, creditors reconciled, quotes prepared and sent to client and three client visits.
Is that possibly the reason why I am asleep by 9:30 pm?
On my sleeping times, I have moaned and groaned often enough over the last 10 months about the fact I used to live the life of Riley and sleep late in the mornings for me to realise enough is enough and accept the fact that I am now officially an early bird.
The problem with been the early bird in Ghana is there is no-one next to you in the morning to catch the worm. Playing with the worm by yourself is like kissing your sister! It is a kiss, but it does not count as the real thing.
I am now waking up between 4.30am and 5.30am and lying in bed sending the odd SMS and reading my book until get out of bed time at 5.55am. That’s the problem with going to bed early. The body is still used to 7-8 hours a night and lo and behold I happily beat the sun up 9 mornings out of 10. CNN and Sky-News are firm fave’s in the morning now when I have sent my SMS and do not feel like reading.
There was another visit from the thought police today listing two of my days at 42 minutes for one day and 5 HOURS!. for another. Not sure how they can log me on the net for five hours and on one of the sites considering that day I spent 4 hours at a client in Wassa. I apparently had 1790 hits to the site. At our line speed? Methinks the little policeman logger got his piddle in a froth.
I have now decided that I will limit my internet access to my 16k dial up at home. It makes life easier for everyone. Especially my Larnie who ends up having to do the please explain session to the bald headed lad reading the logs.
This month is financial year end and in three weeks the new financial year starts and one where all the bells and whistles have to go off simultaneously. As I am wont to do when I want to get everyone I work with looking in the same direction, I hold a think tank.
Accordingly 17 of us – all the managers and supervisors – are off to the closest conference center for the weekend to sit in a barely air-conditioned room and gaze dully at a PowerPoint presentation on how we did in 2005 fin year and what we want to do in 2006 fin year. It is a harsh weekend with a lot of boredom interspersed by forced socializing and bad food and no booze.
(did you believe a word of the above paragraph?) If you did, there is a nice bridge in San Francisco that I have for sale.
Around three times a year, the objective is to get the management staff away together on a semi social basis to refocus and mainly to get to know each other out of the work environment. The expats in the main live together and socialize together, but on a very very infrequent basis socialize with the local management. This gets the lads together and contributes towards the fact that everyone has to pick up on the fact we are a team and all work for the same goals.
So for a sum total of $60 per person for the weekend (excluding booze) we get together, sit in a room for 3 hours on the Saturday and 2 hours on the Sunday and walk away with some idea of where the company is going. Cheap at twice the price in my book!
I am also going to Accra next week to do the following “stuff”
• Look for more suitable accommodation and office space for when we set up our office in Accra.
• Meet with two local ISP’s over connectivity for our Obuasi and Akyhem operations
• Fight with a clearing agent who suddenly decides we owe them money going back to 2002.
• Fight with the Bank as to why we cannot transfer funds out of the country
• Oh yeah and fight with the bank over their bank charges
• Meet with the Minerals Commission and catch up on three years of reports to enable us to get work permits for the expats (and me)
• Meet with the Revenue guys to try and work out why if I am a local company I need to pay a 5% withholding tax on each invoice given to a client, but an external company can have their funds remitted outside of the country without paying any withholding tax at all. That’s besides the fact we pay PAYE, VAT, NHIL, Development Levy, Dash, Traffic Officers Coke Money and employ locals. (Insert holier than thou face here)
• Meet with the local clearing agent to work out what the effect of having a group decision to use a South African clearing agent who has secured all the groups business, but is not represented in Ghana.
All this and Zack and Gus are going back down south on Monday on R&R. I “forced” them to stay for the think tank.
On R&R, given my experiences explained in the last blog, I was due to rotate back on Friday 01/07/2005. Some guy at SAA had a brain wave and decided that lots of people want to go to the USA from Ghana. Given the fact that there are no direct flights from ACCRA to the USA besides the odd dodgy charter, SAA will now be flying to the USA via Accra. What that means is the schedule has changed and the Friday flight is no longer. Given the fact I was flying back on the Friday, my ticket has a date on it for one that is missing the plane.
No issue, the new flight schedule is now on a Thursday, so I can fly out on the Thursday right? Oh if only it was so simple. Thursday in this case is 30/06 which is before the new schedule comes into operation. As per the old schedule, there is no Thursday flight. Ergo, I fly on the Wednesday.
Why not fly on the Saturday you ask? Well consider the fact that they started the Saturday flight because the Friday flights were so full, and there is no Friday flight on this week and you can imagine the Saturday flight is going to be filled to the gunnels, with an overloaded roof rack. Wednesday is a lot better option. The office gets a week of my time for free anyways so I do not feel it a mission to leave a day early as I will be in the office doing monthly reports the next week.
One downside is Nessers cannot pick me up from the airport. So no more embarrassing her when I arrive on a Saturday morning. I will also have to wait until the evening before I ravish her bones!
My house continues to be full, but I will be down to one guest next week as Zack and Gus head off home. I am missing my privacy in a big way and need to find a permanent solution to the housing issues.
I am antsi at the moment so let me post this and pack up and go home!
Eat my www.blogger.com though policeman!
What we have here is the winding down of a hectic week. Month end completed, monthly reports completed, debtors reconciled, creditors reconciled, quotes prepared and sent to client and three client visits.
Is that possibly the reason why I am asleep by 9:30 pm?
On my sleeping times, I have moaned and groaned often enough over the last 10 months about the fact I used to live the life of Riley and sleep late in the mornings for me to realise enough is enough and accept the fact that I am now officially an early bird.
The problem with been the early bird in Ghana is there is no-one next to you in the morning to catch the worm. Playing with the worm by yourself is like kissing your sister! It is a kiss, but it does not count as the real thing.
I am now waking up between 4.30am and 5.30am and lying in bed sending the odd SMS and reading my book until get out of bed time at 5.55am. That’s the problem with going to bed early. The body is still used to 7-8 hours a night and lo and behold I happily beat the sun up 9 mornings out of 10. CNN and Sky-News are firm fave’s in the morning now when I have sent my SMS and do not feel like reading.
There was another visit from the thought police today listing two of my days at 42 minutes for one day and 5 HOURS!. for another. Not sure how they can log me on the net for five hours and on one of the sites considering that day I spent 4 hours at a client in Wassa. I apparently had 1790 hits to the site. At our line speed? Methinks the little policeman logger got his piddle in a froth.
I have now decided that I will limit my internet access to my 16k dial up at home. It makes life easier for everyone. Especially my Larnie who ends up having to do the please explain session to the bald headed lad reading the logs.
This month is financial year end and in three weeks the new financial year starts and one where all the bells and whistles have to go off simultaneously. As I am wont to do when I want to get everyone I work with looking in the same direction, I hold a think tank.
Accordingly 17 of us – all the managers and supervisors – are off to the closest conference center for the weekend to sit in a barely air-conditioned room and gaze dully at a PowerPoint presentation on how we did in 2005 fin year and what we want to do in 2006 fin year. It is a harsh weekend with a lot of boredom interspersed by forced socializing and bad food and no booze.
(did you believe a word of the above paragraph?) If you did, there is a nice bridge in San Francisco that I have for sale.
Around three times a year, the objective is to get the management staff away together on a semi social basis to refocus and mainly to get to know each other out of the work environment. The expats in the main live together and socialize together, but on a very very infrequent basis socialize with the local management. This gets the lads together and contributes towards the fact that everyone has to pick up on the fact we are a team and all work for the same goals.
So for a sum total of $60 per person for the weekend (excluding booze) we get together, sit in a room for 3 hours on the Saturday and 2 hours on the Sunday and walk away with some idea of where the company is going. Cheap at twice the price in my book!
I am also going to Accra next week to do the following “stuff”
• Look for more suitable accommodation and office space for when we set up our office in Accra.
• Meet with two local ISP’s over connectivity for our Obuasi and Akyhem operations
• Fight with a clearing agent who suddenly decides we owe them money going back to 2002.
• Fight with the Bank as to why we cannot transfer funds out of the country
• Oh yeah and fight with the bank over their bank charges
• Meet with the Minerals Commission and catch up on three years of reports to enable us to get work permits for the expats (and me)
• Meet with the Revenue guys to try and work out why if I am a local company I need to pay a 5% withholding tax on each invoice given to a client, but an external company can have their funds remitted outside of the country without paying any withholding tax at all. That’s besides the fact we pay PAYE, VAT, NHIL, Development Levy, Dash, Traffic Officers Coke Money and employ locals. (Insert holier than thou face here)
• Meet with the local clearing agent to work out what the effect of having a group decision to use a South African clearing agent who has secured all the groups business, but is not represented in Ghana.
All this and Zack and Gus are going back down south on Monday on R&R. I “forced” them to stay for the think tank.
On R&R, given my experiences explained in the last blog, I was due to rotate back on Friday 01/07/2005. Some guy at SAA had a brain wave and decided that lots of people want to go to the USA from Ghana. Given the fact that there are no direct flights from ACCRA to the USA besides the odd dodgy charter, SAA will now be flying to the USA via Accra. What that means is the schedule has changed and the Friday flight is no longer. Given the fact I was flying back on the Friday, my ticket has a date on it for one that is missing the plane.
No issue, the new flight schedule is now on a Thursday, so I can fly out on the Thursday right? Oh if only it was so simple. Thursday in this case is 30/06 which is before the new schedule comes into operation. As per the old schedule, there is no Thursday flight. Ergo, I fly on the Wednesday.
Why not fly on the Saturday you ask? Well consider the fact that they started the Saturday flight because the Friday flights were so full, and there is no Friday flight on this week and you can imagine the Saturday flight is going to be filled to the gunnels, with an overloaded roof rack. Wednesday is a lot better option. The office gets a week of my time for free anyways so I do not feel it a mission to leave a day early as I will be in the office doing monthly reports the next week.
One downside is Nessers cannot pick me up from the airport. So no more embarrassing her when I arrive on a Saturday morning. I will also have to wait until the evening before I ravish her bones!
My house continues to be full, but I will be down to one guest next week as Zack and Gus head off home. I am missing my privacy in a big way and need to find a permanent solution to the housing issues.
I am antsi at the moment so let me post this and pack up and go home!
Eat my www.blogger.com though policeman!
1 Comments:
How's the hangover? ;)
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