Accreditation file

I had always hated doing the accreditation files, of course it is due next week, so I dragged myself to work on it this week, along with replying to emails, answering calls, attending meetings and of course the famous 1000 dirhams license.  

What I noticed though that whoever had figured out the file had thought of it really well, it is certainly a very clever business start-up, business development model. It makes you remember your mission statement, your objective, how you treat your staff, what is the product offerings, what is your financial health, are you preparing marketing plans, is your statistics showing growth, etc. 

So after thinking about this, I embarked on the folder and started to analyse our work to find out if we are doing well or not or if we had missed on any of the points.  Also it occurred to me that maybe we have to provide some more products to complement what we are providing now.  I re-looked our marketing strategy and decided to make changes on how we had been doing it all along!  I figured that all of these exhibitions that we had been going to are not generating results except awareness, and since our students change every year, and the necessity of promoting ourselves year after year to schools and colleges so they know that we exist, I thought maybe it is best to start working with the students themselves and provide them an incentive by making them part of the company.  For example most of the high school students around the world work part time. Our students spend their time in the shopping centres or on play stations.  So they go to universities without knowing anything about work, nor do they have an out of the box thinking process.  So if they work with us part time, and they are involved in doing what they like to do (all the businesses will have media, business, accounting, finance, statistics, customer service, helping others, graphic design, journalism, IT, computer science and so on and so forth); And since most people are visual and most students prefer to watch tv and movies, and since YouTube and the advent of the internet TV, kids can be involved in corporate videos, in terms of production, editing and uploading it to the Internet.  Then they can work on socialising with their friends while in your office, provided that they use some key words that encourage the search engine optimisation? What heaven to all business people is that? And what heaven to all kids is that? When you call this win-win you are not exaggerating.  So give it a go people, and let the kids work in your office, help them write their CVs and help them find out what they want to do in the future by hands on experience.  On the other hand, we can build a rapport with the students that work with us so they bring their friends, and then we can give them another reward like make an IPhone 5 drew, or a trip to London! And none of these will break the business. 

Thanks to the ministry of higher education to bring this accreditation process, I wouldn't be thinking about this had I not been squeezed to prepare the file.  

On another note, the accreditation folder is a necessity, as numbers talk.  You can never lie in it or tell the ministry something that is invalid, as every paragraph matches with the other and every annex is a check or a balance. It's like those psychometric questionnaires where the reader would detect untruth by cross checking the answers to certain questions? For example they could ask you what type of music do you like, and you would say jazz, then in another part they would present you a case whereby the next door neighbour has a party and the band is playing Jazz music loudly, what would you do, if one said I would open the window and listen, then the person is telling the truth, but if he says I will call noise control then the person is not only a liar he is also anti social. 

So my numbers tell me that we are running a charity organisation!! Yes, as we make enough to cover our costs? And if a business doesn't have a huge surplus then it can never grow!  A surplus is crucial as a business needs to change furniture, equipment, computers and laptops and needs to spend on cars and staff promotions; so we must grew, as we really have to have another office and we must strengthen our Internet. The word growth was used so many times in the accreditation file, in the past I barely thought about it, today I  appreciated the ministry and it's concern for our business and insistence on its success.

The Affair of Renewing a Driving License

My Driving License expired couple of months ago, had no time to do it, so I went last week all the way to the police station, but I was told that I must go to the Co-ops, so off I went, took a number and waited, when my turn came few hours later, I was told that I needed my passport, eye test and pictures. Didn't have my passport so I decided to come the next day, but the next day was today which is a week later. First I took the photos, paid 35 dirhams, then did the eye test which took half a second, and paid a 100 dirhams(I think I must open an optometry guys, that means that this guy makes 12000 dirhams an hour man!?) then went up to do the license, the guy told me that I have fines? Some came from sharjah? And some from a remote area of dubai? Didn't want to argue so I paid them just to get that license, then I gave my passport, the person said that I needed a photocopy not the original, so went down again and paid a dirham for the copy, this could have been avoided had they told me that I needed a copy which I could have taken one in the office. All in all the license which was 120 dirhams costed me a 1000!!

On my way out I saw my friend with her eye test paper, I asked her if she has a passport copy? And enough cash in case she has any fines? She affirmed that she has no fines, and that she didn't know she had to take a copy of the damn passport (a travel document but used for all walks of life); so we chatted a bit about the forthcoming wedding of my son which she unfortunately cannot attend as she is going to Australia showing off her newly fixed hip???

I had some other work in the police station, while waiting for my turn my phone rings, and it was Susharyn saying that I must add in my blog that she had to pay a fine for something from Municipality dating as far back as 2009, and no one can tell what it is for? I laughed of course as she didn't believe me, so I asked if she paid it or to? She said she just wanted that damn license as she is travelling, so she had to pay. And she is on a mission to find out what it is for??

Right, why am I boring you with this? Its because in Dubai we are so free and have nothing to do except to go to various government departments to do our chores. I lived everywhere, I never saw a government official, every thing could be done online or in the post office, and nothing is linked to a car registration or a driving license renewal, if I had a fine to pay I have to pay it separately. Say for example that I didn't have 1000 dirhams on me? Then I wouldn't have got my license, and I would have driven the car without one? And if anything happens (God forbid) then I would have had a large fine? Last year we paid over 15000 dirhams in fines. Basically we work so hard just to pay bills? When is the time going to come to first do all the chores by the Internet, and second we have enough money in our account to think of buying all of those stuff they keep on sending SMS messages on our phones during Dubai shopping festival? Or buy those lovely bread loaves on sale at the supermarket. Well, I am sure one day everybody is going to wake up to this fact and will do something about it. For me, I would rather wait for that day to happen. Yes I am passive, and I like it.

World Interference in our countries

Well it is so easy to spot the problem by just reading the headlines of any news paper. Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen,Libya, i.e Middle East giants who have lots of natural resources, then you have Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China i.e those that have lots of people; the third lot is Spain, Greece and Italy with their debt problems, and so on and so forth. Of course I am not even attempting to mention Cuba, the rest of the southern America countries or Africa with its rich but corrupt countries.

My question is who is behind this and what is the real problem? OK, look at this picture that will sum it all up:

Basically the United States as the poorest, most unemployment, most bankrupt banks, most corruption, most homeless people sleeping in subways, but the biggest power in this world holds the magic wand that controls every country in this world, and if a country goes against the wishes of this giant wand, then we must do something about it. Let us have a look at what US gets pissed off about: clean energy?? ok, they have it! but we cannot have it; freedom of speech! well they have it too, but we cannot have it either: Oil! they have lots of it, but we have more so they are angry about it, if they play God, then they should have all the oil in the world while we should be living in tents with camels; Industry! I cannot say that they have more industry than us, but they certainly have the most powerful ones like Microsoft, Intel and Apple! and they certainly want to stop us all from having an industry that will even attempt to be bigger than what they have.

Talk to any American person, and you will know that they have no idea who are we, except what they have been brain washed to think! they think that we are all a bunch of terrorists who want to kill the Americans! well I would hate to bring it to the American's attention that the biggest terrorists in the world is USA? who is producing all of these ARMS? who is exporting all of these bombs and guns? if it is not America then who is? who is the largest conspirator in the world? the CIA? who is the largest investigation agency? FBI? who is brain washing the public? you have all seen the movie conspiracy theory? even if that movie is a fragment of Mel Gibbon's imagination it still reflect some of the truth about what the CIA is capable of doing. I am certain that it has a folder about every human being in the world as the CIA thinks that every person in this world is there to take over USA and converts it to a country of sand, tents, camels and Bedouins. I am not going to mention the American Aborigines (apparently it is not PC to call them red Indians) also I am not going to mention slavery, and how half of America was fighting the other half to keep the blacks under slavery.

Don't take me wrong, I love America, and if it is left to me I would go there and live for the rest of my life, however I hate its foreign policies and how it wants to own the whole world, or it will turn it to ruins such as what it did to Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Just a last comment here, who created Osama Bin Ladden?

More pictures for Turkish food