Beef Olives

A big - really big - part of my job deals with communication. What I am talking about now is not in the technical side of computers and telephones and the like, but making sure everyone understands what everyone else is saying. This can be difficult even when everyone speaks English, but is even harder when the people I deal with have trouble understanding English. Here is one example.

This morning I had a problem with our generators. We have two big generators and a smaller one. The smaller one can provide enough power for all the buildings in our complex during the winter months when the load on the system is not as high as in the summer. Today the engineers from one of our contractors needed to take both of the big generators offline for maintenance. This left us only the smaller generator, which can not handle the total load we get in the summer. So, the engineers asked if they could turn off the power in two buildings to lighten the load while the big generators were getting fixed. I said they could this time, but tried to explain to them the importance of keeping the power running all the time. I gave them two examples. First, we hold classes in one of the buildings, and we would have to cancel those classes with no power for air conditioning or lights or computers. Since our job here is to train the Iraqis that has a direct, negative impact on our mission. Second, we have a laundry in the other building. With no power the laundry could not work and people would have to wait longer for their clothes and linens to be cleaned.

I thought this was a clear and simple explanation. Perhaps something got lost in the translation. Later the boss of the company that provides the laundry service was wondering why I was mad at him. He had heard I was upset because the laundry was not working!

I was shaking my head about this while eating lunch, then I had another such experience. During lunch I ate something which I thought was rice pudding (if it was, and I think it was, it was great although very different than any rice pudding I have ever had. Yesterday's bread pudding was absolutely awesome!) Before I left I took a look at the lunch menu to see what it was. I saw no mention of what the desserts were. Then I looked at the menu for tonight's dinner. One item listed was "Beef Olive." I am not sure what a "Beef Olive" is, but I guess I will find out tonight!