Ok, I've been VERY poor in posting an update for sometime now. Long story short, I did some traveling and then got lazy and then the Army restricted access to many blog sites. Not that I was either reading or updating a blog while at work but I was doing so on off hours. Also internet in my hooch can be sometimes sporadic but it certainly is slower than at work.
So that's my mea culpa. One of the things that I do is a here is alot of customer visits (aka customer suckup visits). From MBA school I know it's just as important to be liked as it is to be competent. Here's pic of me before I head out for that day's visits.
Lastly, about a month back when I left for Anaconda for my trip to Kuwait the Army decided to conduct a 'Health and Welfare' inspection of hooches (containerized living spaces). They do this under the auspices of 'safetly' but there's a general concenus that they're looking for something following a hot tip. Normally such an inspection with be illegal in the states but... as a contractor, you're a hybrid civilian/military being and as such, subject the rules (but maybe not the privlidges) of being in the military. Anyway, at 0500, the Army started wakinging people up and telling them they had 3 minutes to get dressed and go stand in a field until the inspection was over. Now after you open the door and are given your 3 minutes, you were also watched, so this was a very detailed 'safety' inspection. Anyway, out of about 150 people, 17 were busted for booze, drugs and 'other'. Also, not everyone was in his/her room alone. Some had 'guests' over. Realize also that hooches are not that big and come with only a full sized mattress. This maybe Iraq and most Iraqis are muslim but there seems to be plenty of booze and drugs out there and truckers whow routinely travel on and off base are happy to oblige. Also the 'other' was for 'unauthorized personal items' that 2 women had. I talked to one of them and she said that "all the women" have them and that "the items" were never told to her that they were unauthorized. She was very distraught and had to tell her parents that she was coming home and for what reason and no one was happey. Well, about 3 weeks later, all the booze and drugs violators were gone but the women fought their case and this time prevailed. They were not fired but they never did get their 'personal item' back. So have you figured out what the 'personal item' was yet?

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