Monday 19 April 2010

Monday Madness, Control Towers and Volcanic Fiascos!


"It seems strangely appropriate for a geologist's travel to be completely screwed up by a volcanic eruption..."

I have been crazy busy this Monday morning. I had two teams to send out to 2 sites, organise additional hardware kit to complete 1 site, get/confirm pricing, coordinate with my chief techie and 1 particularly demanding client, send a status update to another client for whom I am sourcing a huge IT kit order from the United States, do some last minute specs hunting online, attend to an LEC technician and so on....

This was all done 9 am onwards to 2 pm sitting at my desk - my control tower - without a single moment's break. I love this kind of busy-ness! Monday has just flown by and everything is in order. I guess I love working under pressure. All I need is electricity to be on and regular shipments of tea to my desk.

I am most pleased with the performance of my staff. They are really on top of their stuff and all I really need to do is to provide them with support in terms of tools, transport/lunch, back up, double check the market prices, etc. I am also very proud of the trainees who are enthusiastic about learning and pitching in. It's a wonderful feeling. The business model is working.

Lastly, it's fascinating how the volcanic eruption in little old Iceland is creating logistical nightmares for everyone. Important dignitaries could not attend the state funeral of the Polish Prezzie and his wife. More locally here in Liberia, people trying to come back from holiday could not get back (I guess yay for them) and those trying to go on holiday could not go (nay for them). The same shipment of IT kit from the US is delayed for the time because it was coming through Brussels.

It reminded me of something I read in a pop-economics-for-everyone paperback: a butterfly flapping its wings in the rainforests of Brazil will cause a tsunami in East Asia. Or as one of my good friends who is also a geologist told me: "It seems strangely appropriate for a geologist's travel to be completely screwed up by a volcanic eruption..."

There's a very insightful blog on BBC on how social networking sites have allowed people to pool in resources and find alternative solutions to air travel (#get me home: social media and stranded travellers). Facebook and Twitter have basically allowed faster inter connections between people in such a disaster. Moreover, people are happy about relying on each other rather than companies or the state! (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/04/getmehome_social_media_and_str.html)

What else? I had a great weekend. A whirlwind trip to Gbarnga, meeting a Chinese cycling whizz, networking networking over the weekend, ludo marathon on Sunday and catching 'Cable Guy' last night on TV.

It's HOT as hell and when is the rainy season going to commence?

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