March 01, 2006
Moving in Bangladesh
So after two weeks of being out of the office traveling and in Dhaka, I arrive ready to get to work designing great handicrafts in Muktagacha. But the office that I returned to is not the office that I left. Half the stuff was gone and the rest was in disarray. The four days of work that I've had so far this week have mainly involved me sitting around. First of all it is considered below me to pick up anything and pack it. Our office has 4-5 regular staff whose status allows them to do the "dirty work." Everyone else sits and supervises - and tells them what to do. The office also hired four rickshaw drivers and a truck to do all the moving. This might not make sense, but I am a person who likes to just do things myself and get it done as fast as I can - and do it nicely. The rickshaw drivers would be moving the desks and furniture knocking the new walls of our office and chipping the doors. They would do this proportionately more if they hadn't had breakfast. Everything takes forever to pack, unload, and rearrange. And if you aren't supervising the workers directly, they don't always work. When it came to rearranging the office, everyone gives their opinion. As I had some classes in interior design, I like to draw a plan and then move all the furniture. My co-workers prefer moving the noisy, heavy furniture and talking for hours about each room and rearranging a million times - sometimes repeating an arrangement. Tonight I am staying in the new office as my furniture is still at my old house. So today I got some workers and arranged one of the guestrooms. My co-workers were a little apalled that I lifted a finger to clean a bit of the wall, but I had the room arranged faster than they ever have. After that I was given permission to arrange the entire guesthouse. That is the other thing. Arun, the man in charge, has total power and total responsibility for the entire process and office. The rest of us must wait for him to approve a decision or find out how he wants something. He as a result is becoming very stressed out. That isn't all. All of the MCC workers lived in Muktagacha when the office was in Muktagacha. But now that the office is in Mymensingh, they are all moving to Mymensingh. Rent here starts on March 1st. Rent for the office starts March 1st, rent for their houses starts March 1st. So every single person in the office moved their house in the last two days as well as working all day moving the office. February 28th was also the last day of MCC's fiscal year, so there was all that work to do to. This way of moving is not how I would do it, but I am learning a new way - and lots of patience!
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6 comments:
BECKY HOMECKY! its josh! i stole your flower picture to put on my computer. muahaha. as pretty as ever. how are things? i miss talking to you. your blog is very interesting. wow, keeping all of the city names seems brutal. email me kiddo.
It does seem like quite an adjustment for you, considering you are pretty independent. I admire your ability to handle all of these changes.
Wow, it's amazing how in different cultures, even small things like moving furniture in an office is different. I'm sure there are a million things you take for granted that are just done in a totally different way. Congrats on adjusting, I'm sure it's not easy!
I can totally picture you during all this happening and it makes me smile! I would be frustrated too. I hope everything is arranged/moved soon. And is that Josh Warren who commented? It took me awhile to figure it out.
Wow - you have a ton more patience than I do! I can't stand people doing things for me. I would have to rebel. REVOLUTION!
I hope we haven't forgotten our capstone lession on imperialism. It's never a good idea to push your ideas on others!
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