A Craptacular Day Redeemed

I'm still adjusting to the different weekends, and I was determined to use today to get downtown and run some very necessary errands, but also stop by the Captain's Arms for fish & chips. Unfortunately, it all fell apart. I was grabbing a quick workout this morning when the very rep at my bank called me to tell me that there was a problem in attemptint go finalize my opening of a bank account at HSBC. First off, I have to admit that I really appreciate that the guy went out of his way to actually do some homework in advance and call me to tell me about a potential problem, as compared to me showing up downtown and then finding out (which is what would have undoubtedly happened at an American bank, especially a Vermont bank). What is annoying is that I began to process of trying to set up a bank account two weeks ago and I was really hoping to finish it today. I couldn't complete the process two weeks ago because I didn't have a local phone (since remedied) and didn't have my passport (Zayed had it as they tried to finalize my resident visa). The passport showed up this week, and so I thought, foolishly, that everything could be locked down today. Essentially the problem today was that my original salary letter from Zayed, which you have to have to open a bank account, had "expired." For some reason it was written on 17 August, two weeks before I arrived in Abu Dhabi. So, I need to get another salary letter, and then make another trip downtown to open the bank account (not to be confused with the trip I have to make downtown to actually put money in the bank, of course). Not surprisingly this put me in a remarkably foul mood and I ended up deciding not to ride downtown with the Remnants because my enthusiasm for life in the UAE had reached an early nadir. Instead, I did the only logical thing a person in that bad of a mood could do - I sat out by the pool, and alternated between swimming, drinking cool mint drinks, tanning, reading, and eating a club sandwich. My mood eventually improved, and I may, may, actually be fit for polite company again. Still, it simply shouldn't be that difficult to set up a bloody bank account. Oddly, I guess I wouldn't mind this so much if it were happening in India or Kenya, but the ultra-modern veneer of the UAE fools you into thinking that these things should be easy. Now, no one is generally more culturally sensitive than I am - or more accepting of different "times" (Arab time, Indian time, Africa time - as my Arab, Indian and African friends always kid about) - but there is a time when it is not simply a case of differing cultural timelines. Sometimes it truly is incompetence.