Sometimes Life Gives you Lemons

Sometime life gives you lemons indeed!

Last year I signed a contract to provide accredited ISO Quality courses to the UK. There are a number of large companies already doing this but as an SME with lower overheads I can provide similar courses at lower cost so benefiting my customers. The first course was scheduled for early December 2014, but was postponed for no interest as it was too close to Christmas.

I have rescheduled the course for the first week in February in Dartford, Kent and am trying to raise awareness and interest to the event. I didn’t realise how hard it would be.

Return to Blogging

This is my first blog for over a year. I guess that you could say that time management has not been my strong-point recently 😦

In the last year and a half I have spent the good part of 3 months working in Lebanon on an EU-Funded project (as I mentioned in an earlier blog). This has been a wonderful project to work on, I have travelled over most of the country consulting and training on various quality systems and made some good friends in the process. Lebanon has had a bad press over the past quarter century. Firstly there was the civil war that started in the 1970’s and didn’t finish until the 1990’s (although the war was concluded there was still religious and political friction) then there was the Israeli conflict in the mid-2000’s since which time there has been a stand-off between the two nations. In the past couple of years we have seen the Syrian conflict and the raise of militant extremism. All through this the people have endured and survived. It is a testimony to this people that they are flourishing. Travelling the countryside one gets a perspective of the historic and the attempts this country is making to develop into a 21st Century Nation. In all my time in the country I only came across one person who made it obvious he was not happy that I was there. This happened in the Old Souk in Saide (Southern Lebanon) where tensions were high, I simply moved on and we both went upon our separate ways. That is not to say it is a safe country, one has to be careful and watchful when abroad. The large city of Beirut I found essentially safe (although there were areas I was advised not to visit) further out into the countryside one has to take caution and listen to the local peoples about where and when to travel. Whilst I was in the country there were several car bombs so to say it is 100% safe would be a lie. With the migration of a million-plus Syrian refugees and the attacks of extremist groups in the north and around the borders the psyche is somewhat fragile. But the people endure, this is what is so great about the country.

Would I suggest this country as a holiday destination today? Probably not; but I would encourage businesses to look toward this country and visit it to how they can work there.

A Post-Walk Update

If you have read my earlier blogs then you will know that as a fat man I attempted to walk through the Grand Canyon with 2 friends and ended up being airlifted to Flagstaff Medical Center with severe dehydration. It wasn’t the walk that was the problem it was that I forgot to keep drinking! Since that time I have had nothing but problems with the insurance claim. Before flying out to LA I took out a 12-month travel insurance with a well-known firm through a friend and local broker 1Stop Insurance, the broker has been excellent pity I couldn’t say the same for the insurance company that holds the policy. following my claim in June I found in August that I had to put a separate claim for out of pocket expenses. I only found this out after several telephone calls to the insurance company – at no point did they contact me or were helpful in any way. then the letters from the medical center started to appear on my doormat wanting payment from me since the insurance company had not paid up. Each was passed to me broker and they handled the issue for me in a professional manner and kept me informed. Still no movement from the insurance company. We put in an official complaint and still no contact. Still the letters from Flagstaff appeared on my doormat – I think 4 in total. I finally got a letter telling me that the issue had been settled – whoopee!…….then a letter appeared from Arizona; this time it wasn’t from the medical center but the ambulance service wanting payment! I could have wept in frustration! As I am sure my broker felt the same. That was a couple of weeks ago and everything has gone quiet, I just hope that the issue has now been settled and I won’t get any more letters wanting payment. Wish me luck!!

So, apart from fighting with insurance companies what have I been doing since my walk in June? I’ve been busy – working, not walking. I have worked out that in the past 5 months I have spent 3 1/2 months travelling and staying in various hotels across a quarter of the globe: from California to Lebanon and a number of countries/states in between. Where possible I have been walking, mostly through the various cities and usually in the evening. It has helped blow away the cobwebs of the day but isn’t the training I need to continue if I want to continue to lose weight and attempt another challenge in the near future. I am so often away from my home base at the moment that I have had to give up working with my personal trainer – I was simply not in the area often enough for it to have been of any real benefit. What this has meant is that I have unable to keep up the Herbalife diet as religiously as I wanted (you try bringing a canister of powder and a food processor on any flight and see how you get on! 🙂 This has meant that I have put on weight, and I am not happy about it. Since June I have put on 12 pounds, when I would have preferred to have lost at least that much (if not more). As sitting in a Beirut office on the 8th floor overlooking the Mediterranean Sea I have checked my diary and found that I currently do not have any trips planned for December/January and so once back in the UK I intend to get back on my Herbalife and walking programmes and lose that weight.

I’ll post back with my progress.

Internal Auditing

After the last few days of wet, changeable weather in the UK I find myself back in the hot, humid Mediterranean. Beirut, to be exact. I arrived at Heathrow Airport amidst fog and rain showers and after queuing at passport control for 45 minutes I emerged out of Rafic Hariri airport into the warm sultry night with my suitcase and my computer looking forward to the week ahead.

My last training course (ISO 17025 awareness) was such a great success I am back in Beirut for my second mission with British Standards Institute and Qualeb (Lebanese ministry of trade) this time to supply a 3-day training course on internal auditing (specifically auditing to the requirements of ISO 17025). The course is going to be split into three sections; Day 1 – basics of internal auditing, Day 2 – Requirements of the standards and Day 3 – findings and the next steps. I have been told that the majority of the people at my awareness course are set to return for this course so I am looking to meeting up and hearing how they have been doing since June; there are also set to be a number of new delegates who I am looking forward to meeting.

The presentation is prepared, the teaching aids are being printed and the training room is being readied. I am now waiting for the morning for it to start.

The Day After

Well it looks like some conflict has come to Beirut. There is a protest happening around the parliament building, from what I can gather there were supposed to be elections but these were suspended by parliament and they voted to give themselves another 17 months which wasn’t by the president who tried to close parliament. The protest seems to be in support of the president – this has meant that the whole area around the government buildings had been barricaded with razor-wire and there is a military presence; also an impromptu tent village of protesters has build-up in the road near my hotel. I was told at breakfast that there had been a scuffle and people were taken to hospital last night. I have also heard reports that there was fighting last night near the airport (I am unsure of the reason for this – whether it is connected to the political protest or other trouble). I went into the office today to write up be report and do other work and then went for a walk. The protesters seem happy, enjoying themselves and not out for trouble and the military are on alert but there is no apparent threat from either side.

Day 4

I have just finished the 4th and final day of my training programme. The programme was provided through Qualeb (Quality for Lebanon – part of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, funded by the European Union) to laboratory staff in Lebanon and is aimed at helping Lebanese companies compete in global markets. The training package I have supplied is to help laboratories understand the requirements of ISO 17025:2005 and its implementation.

There were an average of 22 delegates on each day, but not necessarily the same 22 (!) During the course of the 4 days delegates would attend for the part of the course they needed and their colleagues would attend other days. This worked for them – do it worked for me.

The course has been well-received, I have had good feedback from all the delegates. I must say I have had a great time – the delegates (all Lebanese) have been open and friendly; a delight to teach and network with during the breaks and I hope to go back soon.

Beirut is a fascinating city, before I went I will admit to being a little apprehensive (this is my first visit and all I knew was the media hype). As expected, the hype only highlighted negatives. My hotel (Markazia Monroe Suites) is a 5 star hotel about 1/4 mile from the parliament in downtown, the staff are wonderful and the hotel magnificent. I have not a single complaint about my room (a Junior Suite) which provides a great living space. On my first morning as I was waiting the taxi I noticed a bell boy inspecting the fixtures for dust – this show a pride in their hotel which seems to permeate throughout the place. The downtown area is a mix of extremes – there is a magnificent yellow mosque next to a smaller but well-appointed church opposite a shell of a building that use to be a cinema. Most of the shops are for high value items – Burberry, Porsche etc. So there is an affluence but just outside downtown (the “suburbs”?) there is a bustle of humanity all living on top of each other in a morass of roads and high rise buildings (most of which don’t look completed). I passed one high rise where the outside walls had not been erected there were only 1/2 panels and I could see people living in the rooms beyond. But this lends a charm to the place. The people are so friendly, I have had conversation with people on the street, taxi drivers, restaurant staff – they were all friendly and genuinely pleased that someone was taking the time to talk with them. On one taxi journey the taxi driver started to try to teach me Arabic, so I then taught him some Welsh! And I feel safe when walking around the city – be it at 4pm or 11:30pm walking back alone from a restaurant; and there are areas in London where I couldn’t say that, so I think that’s a testimony to the place. That’s not to say that there aren’t problems – there are areas of Lebanon which are currently no-go areas (Tripoli in the north, as an example) and everyone is mindful that troubles could be coming their way. I hope it doesn’t.

I look forward to returning later this year.

Day 1

Well I am back in my hotel after completing Day 1 of my training presentation and I think that it went well.

I didn’t sleep well last night – I think I was nervous over today. I got up about 5:30 showered and started to work on the presentation when – a power outage! It only lasted a couple of minutes then the generator kicked back in and power was restored. A reminder that I wasn’t at home if ever there was one. At breakfast I thought I ordered an “American-style” breakfast but what I got was a basket of breads and croissants, honey, 2 hard boiled eggs and a thick slice of chocolate cake! A strange mix but the honey really helped to pull all the components together.

Picked up and taken to the venue (another hotel in Beirut) I set up my laptop as the delegates arrived – 22 representatives from laboratories in different parts of the country and in different business sectors. After an introduction by the EU representative my training began. It went well, the majority of the delegates don’t seem to want/understand interactive training so a number of my questions disappear into a morass of silence but at other times they ask intelligent questions and engage with the materials.

The day simply flew by, lunch was a delight of new flavours – some unexpected, a spinach and balsamic acid pastry, olive-stuffed artichoke. The delegates enjoyed the day and they, like I, are looking forward to Day 2 tomorrow; although I am very tired and looking forward to a good night’s sleep.

Lebanon

I have spent the past week getting used to being home again – my sleep patterns are still in an upheaval. I sleep in fits during the night and am tiored most of the day. i am told this is in part Jetlag and in part a reaction to the problems I had in the Canyon. Now I am home I am focussing on my next task – providing 1 5-day training package for laboratory staff in Beirut, Lebanon.

I was approached by BSI with a query as to whether I would like to provide this training course as part of a twinning mission on behalf on the European Union and after consideration I allowed my CV to go forward and I was selected to provide the work.So still getting my sleep patterns back to UK time zone I am now flying 2,000+ east and 2 hours in front of the UK!

The work is based around a laboratory standard – ISO 17025:2005 – which is a measurement and calibration quality standard for laboratories. The EU have been working in Lebanin to help support their business structure and this training is part of that mission. 2 years ago i spent 2 weeks in Yemen training staff in a gas company and I have trained companies in the UK. ISo 17025 is a standard I not only help companies implement but it is also a standard I have worked with when I was a Quality Manager. SO it is something that I am very comfortable with.Some people think that I am crazy agreeing to this work in Beirut – but my research tells me that Beirut is a much safer place than it was some 20 years ago, and I don’t think that the EU woould be sending staff there is there was a real danger. yes I will have to be careful, but then there are parts of the US that I have been in where you could ay the same (South Richmond, VA comes to mind). I have completed the presentation and passed it back through to BSI and the EU they seem happy with it. The next step is the flight (4 1/2 hours) on Sunday.

Home

I arrived home earlier this evening after a long but uneventful flight into Heathrow. I have a week at home before my next bout of travelling – Beirut!

Aftermath

So its now almost a week after the events of last weekend. Things seemed to change this week – in the run up to the hike camaraderie was high since the hike things have been much more muted.

I feel very embarrassed to have been airlifted out of the Canyon – I still think that the preparation work I had done before the hike was useful, could I have done more? That is an obvious “yes” but I think that if I hadn’t become ill I would have walked out with the others. I am embarrassed to have succumbed to the heat – some of the reasons have been discussed here but essentially I overheated and stopped drinking – fatal in the conditions. I am grateful to Iain and Michele for helping to get me to help and I am extremely happy that they were able to continue the hike and walk out of the Canyon on Monday night. The ranger indicated that we shouldn’t have attempted it in a day, and I can now see how that wouldn’t have been possible in the prevailing conditions but the attempt was not the reason for my condition and even if we had tried to walk through in 5 days the likelihood is that I would still have become ill and still needed evacuating out at the same point in the work. Once I got into obvious trouble the guys stayed with me and helped – as a team should. Once the ranger appeared at the watering hole and made her decision, I was happy that I was in safe hands. At this point I was moved into the ranger’s house and Iain and Michele continued on the walk; at this point I was relieved that they could continue but I also felt alone with strangers headed I knew not where. I was so lucky to have my credit cards and passport with me in my backpack – otherwise I would have ended up in Flagstaff with no ID and no means of getting back to the Canyon. Being a fairly seasoned traveller worked in my favour – I didn’t fluster when I was discharged I simply got on with finding shelter and food and worked towards getting back to the Canyon and my friends.

Since my circle of friends and loved ones are different from both Iain and Michele’s I don’t think that my posting on Foursquare on that fateful evening would have caused anyone any worry (at least I hope not).

As I said earlier – everything seems muted at the moment. This is because we are all tired and probably have one eye on going home. I fly home tonight and the others fly back next Monday – they are travelling North to a Tim McGraw concert this weekend. I have just seen them off in the car – sitting on a bench outside the Hacienda hotel I telephoned my wife to check on life back home and for the first time in a long time I choked. As we were speaking I suddenly felt my emotions burst through and I had to fight back tears as we spoke. I so wanted to be home and put this trip behind me – the flight won’t come soon enough.

I just hope that my friendship with Iain and Michele holds they have been great company over the past couple of weeks and I hope this continues in the future.