HAVE YOU SEEN THEM?

Loyal followers, I must apologize for being so delayed in my next post. As you all probably know at this point, I have been languishing in a Houston Hotel waiting for my Saudi Work Visa to be completed. Needless to say, what was a nice visit to Houston has turned into an expensive nightmare for the company.


One thing this trip has reminded me of, is all the shenanigans that take place in the Houston office. I’m not talking ruthless political backstabbing, but all out pranks being played on people in my old department. So here is my salute to the men who make the nightmare of anticipation a reality for so many unsuspecting souls.


The Culprits

Jack Mason                                                                  Clinton Williams

Byron Phillips                                                               Eddy Kyzer

Cal Leavitt

Jeff Matulnes



The prank basket is full beyond belief, and I don’t have the space here to write a novella, so I’ll just represent with two classics that were recently played, and a classic look back to the original jokes that started the whole run.




Prank 1: Texas vs. Texas A&M

Those of you who have lived in Texas are used to the constant bantering between Texas and Texas A&M graduates. For those of you who aren’t familiar, think of it terms of the English and the French: respect at some deep level that nobody can find, but general pot shots back and forth.

About 6 weeks ago, Cal Leavitt (Texas A&M grad) thought it would be funny to put a Texas A&M sticker on Charlie Tresselt’s (Texas grad) truck. Well, by the time Cal got to gettin’ that there sticker, it was going into the inside of the car, right on the inner windshield, behind the rear view mirror; the thinking was that this would be harder to notice. Sure enough, the sticker was applied on Friday and wasn’t located until Sunday, when Charlie’s wife got into the truck and saw it right away. Ding, rack one up for the A&M team.

In a normal office environment, with simple pranksters, this would have precipitated a response from Charlie pretty quickly. But in this department, the culprits are always acting as double and triple agents. Monday morning, Jack Mason and Byron Phillips apply a large Texas Longhorn sticker on the back of Cal’s truck. Now Cal is a good Wilson employee and backs into his parking spot, so he could not see this sticker unless he walked around the back of his truck. All Monday long, Charlie says nothing to Cal about the A&M sticker. Cal, not wanting to ruin the joke, stays quiet and heads home at the end of the day with a big Longhorn sticker on his car.

Rather than explain the moment, here is the actual email excerpt I got from Jack:

As you know Cal put a sticker on Charlie's truck last Friday, plus been telling him UT sucks. So today we put on Cal's truck the attached. We watched him drive off with it. Extremely funny because I witnessed Cal a few earlier tell Charlie UT sucks in front of JK. The funny thing is Cal will think Charlie put it on the truck.


Also put in Cal's office UT fight song.

When Cal approached Charlie about the UT sticker, Charlie’s response was, “I didn’t put that sticker on there…I got something special planned for you.” Ring one up for the Culprits.


Prank #2: Steady Rollin’


Craig Winkel joined the Wilson Business Development team about 2 months ago. Craig is a great guy, but had no idea what he was walking into. Before leaving for Saudi Arabia I told him, “This group is ruthless with pranks, so be on the lookout and don’t trust anyone.”

As part of his package, Craig receives a company car that he can use as long as he’s with Wilson. Well for a number of reasons I can’t put my arms around, we’ve gone to the Chrysler 300, shown below.

Well for some reason, Craig’s edition has chrome wheels and tinted windows like the one above in the picture -like Craig's rolling to a Lowrider competition. Well Byron and Jack thought the car deserved some upgrading that would better represent the Lowrider culture.

When Craig rolled into his driveway that night, his family must have wondered why his name was decked out on the back windshield in Old English letters. Likewise, when Cal pulled into work the next day and saw Craig getting out of the car, and then noticing the name on the back windshield, all he could think was, “Look at this guy we just hired in the department.” Another winner for the culprits.

The Pranks that started it all

5 years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a group of us engaged in an epic struggle for office domination: Who could apply the funniest background to someone else’s computer. Now this involves some scheming once the game is underway. The first time someone heads to the bathroom, it is easy to run into their office and save a picture to their background. Once everyone gets a nice addition to their computer, you have to start building alliances and developing nifty ways to get into an office without getting caught by the resident. Needless to say, there are a number of ways to tackle these logistical issues. So when you get back to your desk, you might be greeted by the following on your desktop background:

Kenny Rogers and Lionel Ritchie eating some fruit together

Gary Coleman and David Hasselhof giving the thumbs up in front of Knight Rider

Hillary posing just for you!

Flavor Flav and his TV women (Scary when Clinton could name the women!)

Vladimir Putin and Obama embracing

The options are endless, and they produced hilarious laughs when we took the challenge to other departments. These poor folks had no idea how their backgrounds were changed, and when they came to ask us, of course we had changed ours as well: “I don’t know, someone is messing around…”
So I think I’m heading back to Saudi Arabia in a week. Being here for so long has made me appreciate these pranks and laughs. I have been blessed with an awesome group of people in my work time here, and I’m looking forward to continued pranks in the years to come.

Officially Official

I moved to Saudi Arabia on January 10th, 2010.  When I got here I thought that it would be fairly straightforward to obtain my work visa.  Well nothing is easy with any sort of visa, no matter where one is traveling. 

I quickly found out that work visas in Saudi Arabia are applied for on a bi-annual basis by the host company.  I'll never forget the Shoaibi GRO (Government Relations Officer) looking at me and voicing two very disconcerting statements.  He looked at my current multi-entry/exit visa and said, "This is for 5 years.!  Why did they give to you for 5 years."  I don't know Samir, I just submit the paperwork and cross my fingers.  This was followed with, "I don't know if we have any work visas available.  You have to talk to management."

"Houston, we have a problem."  Without a work visa I can't get a driver's license, which means nothing but a rental car (and those are nice), no bank account locally, which means nice withdrawal fees from my US bank, and mobile phones have to be purchased in the name of the company; this actually turned-out to be an easy fix.  But most importantly, my personal items can't be imported.  That means no new books, no new clothes, other than the ones I lugged over on the plane, and most importantly, now music/guitar to rock and roll with.  AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

So I was a little frustrated to say the least.  I'm getting checks and work is going well, but I can't help but think that I need that work visa long term, plus it will just make life more comfortable when I have my personal items with me.  Well low and behold, our partners came through big time and took a work visa they had reserved for another person and gave it to me.  That was 3 weeks ago, and now, with final papers in hand, I am heading to the USA on February 25th to finalize my work visa.  I am officially a working resident of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

So a boring post probably, but I promised play by play news of the big events.  This is a big one.  I am glad to be heading to Houston for a few days, but it will be weird now that it's not home anymore.  Look forward to seeing everyone that's in Houston.

WELCOME TO AFRICA

Well after my first installment, I thought I would mix things up with an adventure: My first step on the continent of Africa. Cross one off Matt’s To Do List.

When I took on this opportunity, I landed a new boss as well. He is from Cairo, Egypt and has worked with our parent company for over 25 years, not Wilson. So the past few months he has been learning the Wilson organization by making trips to Houston, Dubai and Bahrain to meet his various new reports (including me). He decided a few weeks ago that it was time for the whole team to meet, so he invited us all to Cairo. So this past Tuesday, I headed to Egypt with another manager from Houston who was in town visiting.

Now I had heard that driving was the roughest in Cairo, except for maybe Bombay. Well I haven’t been to Bombay, but this was other worldly driving. I’ll just make a few statements for the record:

1. We never stopped at a stop sign or stop light.  In fact, there were no stop signs or stop lights.
2. Nobody adhered to street lanes. If there were 3 lanes, we were up to 5 cars wide.
3. Pedestrians cross anywhere, anytime, and expect to dodge traffic and not have cars stop for them.
4. There is always traffic, except Friday morning, which is like a USA Saturday.
5. There are 18,000,000 people in this city, and during the workweek, an additional 2,000,000 drive in from outlying cities to go to work. It is the second largest city in the world behind Mexico City.
6. Most importantly, we never had an accident, despite points 1-3.

Here’s a picture just to give you an idea, although I don’t think it does any justice.

So we truly lived life in the fast lane, but it was all worth it when we started to see the historic sites. It’s amazing to see these locations and think about Biblical times. It’s all right here, everything we read about! We went to the pyramids, the sphinx, the Egypt Museum, drover over and under the Nile River, saw Saladin’s castle and a number of other awesome sites on our drives around the city.
After each site we were rushed into the ultimate gift shops: Papyrus, Real perfumes and scents, and jewelry. I grabbed some winners and expect they will be catching the DHL train soon enough. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Matt, Unni (Wilson Oman) and Marty, chilling with the pyramids in the background

At the base of the largest pyramid – Unni, Matt, Marty and Tommy (Wilson Dubai)
Look at how big it all is!

The Sphinx with two of the pyramids in the background

Most importantly, the Nile River…with safety motorcycle rider in foreground; no worries, this guy was nimble on his scooter.

A story wouldn’t be good without a travel warning. I was the last of the group to leave Cairo. Our driver rushed me to a book store to grab something for the plane, as I’d finished my last book, and then dropped me off in front of an airport that clearly lost the battle with communism in the 1950s.
GULP. If you’ve never been through an airport in the Middle East, the picture is hard to explain. It is a wonder that anyone ever gets a ticket. I was standing in the ticket line when all of a sudden the two ticket ladies yell to the lines, “The system is down here, please all move to this station!!” Order and respect are thrown out the window as everyone piles over women and children to get in the new line. I get my tickets, but not without a, “We apologize sir, but this flight is now at 8:40, not 7:40 due to delays.” Great news, thanks! Onto security and immigration I march, where the real run started.
I have done a lot of traveling over the past few years and still got hoodwinked and beat-up in this airport. In less organized airports, like Cairo, there are guys running around with uniforms offering to help you through security and immigration. Like a true ‘merican, I thought the guys that spotted me from 2 miles away were legitimate because I was inside the airport. Wrong. $40 later I was through to immigration, but kicking myself for paying to save 3 minutes in line. How are con-artists inside the airport? As I licked my “cheap” wound, I pulled up to immigration glad to be headed back to Saudi. “Where is your immigration card!!!” I mean stern, sharp, halting, staccato words from this guy. Yep, here it is, NOT FILLED OUT! Not going well. I sit down, complete the card, and back to the end of the line. Back in front of the Soup Nazi and through successful this time.

I am having a blast, but everyday has its new quirks and funny situations.

I CAN SEE NOW!!

Hi everyone!  Well I’m here in Saudi Arabia, Al Khobar to be precise, settling into my apartment and getting used to a new work environment.  Life here is not different from the United States here in a lot of ways.  Work starts at 8am and ends at 5pm, or whenever the job gets finished;  American cars are all over the road, falling apart, while the Japanese and Korean cars just keep on churning away; I get a radio station with everyone from Britney Spears to classic Eagles playing; and I watched all of the NFL playoff games last weekend…

But there are also some serious differences from the United States.  Stores open at 9am and close at noon, then reopen at 4pm and pump out commercialism until midnight.  The middle of the day is prayer time and stores just are not real busy; people are at work and women are usually encouraged to be in public only with their husband, and aren’t permitted to drive.  Our weekends are Thursday and Friday, Friday being the equivalent to Sunday in the West (other parts of the Middle East have Friday and Saturday as weekends, but that’s another subject.).  Sitting down for meals is a very important activity, something I believe we’ve lost in the US and Europe.  If you are fortunate to be invited to a meal, you spend time talking about life away from work – health, family, etc.  Prayers take place 5 times a day, beginning at 5am when the mosques begin the prayers over loudspeakers throughout the city.  Prayer times change everyday depending on factors I am not familiar with; 2 minutes earlier, 1 minute later, etc. from the previous day.  If you are shopping, you can stay in the store, but no work takes place and all employees retreat for prayers.  This usually lasts 25 minutes.

I am so excited about this blog, and I hope it gives everyone a glimpse of another culture and world from our own.  So I have to move on before I spend 15 pages talking about everything that’s happened my first week…all in time my blog followers!

Those of you that were around me leading up to this move know that I had 4 goals:  First was to rededicate myself to my faith.  Second was to get back to living a physically healthy lifestyle.  Third was to learn to play the guitar, and fourth was to learn Arabic.  I’m well on my way with all of these activities, and the future pages of this blog are already burning fire with stories, but my first week brought a particularly funny story with it.

My first day in Saudi Arabia was Thursday, January 14th.  I woke-up and said, “This is the first day of a new commitment to being in shape.”  So ok, swim trunks – check , towel – check, keys – check, oh yeah flip-flops – check, and goggles….hmmm, those must be in the air freight shipment that isn’t here yet.  No problema, I’ll just go native…the pool has got to be cool.  WRONG!  The pool is well taken care of, and slightly on the warmer side for families, so as I dipped my head into start my Olympic comeback, my eyes were immediately shouting little warning yelps…”This is going to hurt Matt!!!”  Well it wasn’t too bad, but my eyes were definitely irritated.

Meanwhile, my personal items are held up waiting for my work visa to be completed, so no goggles are on the way anytime soon.  I decided I had to breakdown and make the investment…man, $15 spent already in this country.  I spend Friday (weekend) , Saturday and Sunday scrounging around the myriad of sports stores in Al Khobar and Dhahran with no luck.  I even hit the equivalent of Academy Sports without any success.  I remember walking into this store thinking, well this is gonna be it!  OK, swimsuits, racing swimsuits, racing swim caps, fins, body boards, surf boards, floaties (shout out Titus), Jr. Speedo goggles…and snorkeling masks?  What is that all about?  No luck. 

That lead me to this past Monday.  I was hitting the big mall because my shoes were getting worn out (remember, other shoes in personal air freight shipment, still in Houston).  I trudge into the mall and head for the mall-map.  Bingo, there’s the shoe store I’m looking for.  Hmm, wonder if there is a sports store here.  Well not just a sports store, but a Sea & Land sports store.  I head off to the shop, taking 45 minutes and 2 passes to finally realize that this store was not grand as it’s name would lead one to believe.  Nope, it was a small store, but there was swimming stuff inside, so I was excited.  I asked the owner if he had goggles and he pointed at the ones under the counter.  “Only pink in your size.”  Make no mistake about it, these were pink, not off-white or reddish, but pink.  Full on teenage girl goggles, and I did some research so you could actually see what I was looking at.  Behold the Speedo Skoogle!

I asked about the myriad of others and he said, “Those for junior.”  As with the Skoogle, take note of the Speedo Jr. Hydrosity.  “These won’t fit you.  For junior only.”

Well it takes only 1 full week living here to teach a person that rejections means you just plow on asking, and sooner or later you will ask the right question.  I looked around under other parts of the counter and sure enough there were other goggles. 

He said, “We have these if you want.”  Not sure why those were previously unavailable, but now they were mine.  Speedo, double-strap goggles.  I purchased the ever so NEW, Vanquisher 2.0.  It’s the small victories that keep the day moving along with a smile…

I dropped in the pool that next morning at 6am and it was like the pool came alive…of course 30 minutes later the pool was taking my life, but at least I can see at work now…

01/20/10
Matt Etter