Contingency planning and double divorces

Had a short day today - mostly gossiping, rearranging my team's timetable for month end, and attending a THREE HOUR Senior Mgt Meeting focusing mostly on contingency planning and security. We had the fun task of deciding who the essential and non-essential staff were - naturally, we each believed that we were absolutely essential. Benefit of rank (aka abuse of power), you see. Then the slightly less fun of thinking up worse case scenarios and their "trigger points". And the absolutely zero fun of deciding steps to take in event of an evacuation. The last just made me feel sick even thinking about it. Or it might have been the cake we were eating during the meeting...

I now understand why field staff are so resistant to being evacuated - it's that feeling that you're giving up and running away just when the going gets tough. Like what the UN does. Fucking UN... They get paid a hardship allowance and get regular R&R for living in luxurious 5 star compounds, and dining out in high priced restaurants - and they still whine about the situation. I know that they are in fact being targeted during these demostrations but about time they're earnt those criminally HUGE salaries. Besides, their 5 star compounds are gorgeous. Grrrr.

Then we had fun trying to sort out the situation with fuel due to a large proportion of petrol stations having been either set alight or otherwise damaged. (For protestors suffering shortages in fuel due to huge price hikes, destroying what fuel there is is probably not the most logical thing to do, but what do I know). Since we only have electricity a couple of hours a day if that, we're so dependent on fuel to power our generators, not only for moving about.

Anyway, on a lighter note, read the following story in an African newspaper that a visiting consultant supplied us with:

"MAN GIVEN A DOUBLE DOSE OF DIVORCE

When Roslan Ngah took a second wife, he might have wondered if she would get along with his first.

He need not have worried.

The two women got on so well they decided to leave him at the same time.

Faced with their united stand, Roslan, 44, a Muslim, divorced his two wives, aged 46 and 35, in a Shariah Court in Terengganu State yesterday.

According to Islamic law, a woman can submit a request to leave her husband, but the pronoucement of divorce must come from the man or a court. Islam allows a man to have four wives.

Salwa Mansor, the second wife's lawyer, said the wives cited irreconcilable differences and other complaints.

Roslan said he was aware his two wives had become close over the years. "They are like good friends but I never imagined both of them had collectively decided to divorce me," Roslan added."

I loved his statement. Typical male obliviousness...