Back In the Saddle

Alright, alright, alright!

I have been hassled by enough of you that I have finally decided to get back to bloggin'. I really do have every intention of completing stories about South America for publication here but as my father would say, "The road to 'H - E - Double hockey sticks' is paved with good intentions."

To piece together the last 4 months in a paragraph I finished my trip through South America (stories and pictures to follow), went home and had a less than fruitful job search (I concede lack of enthusiasm for seeking), saw a bunch of people that I haven't seen in ages, travel to Alaska, Cali, So. Oregon, climbed, camped, skied, gained 10 pounds, got a 2 day job painting radio towers, and then got a call from Louis Berger Group who wanted me to help with a project back in Panama ASAP. After checking my schedule for the next 20 months of my life and finding nothing of interest or any conflicts at all I said, "ummm, alright" to the job and caught a flight out.

To those reading this in the USA I apologize for my abrupt departure, it wasn't your fault. You didn't smell that bad I promise. To those in Panama I'm back baby, and have very little spare time to hang out, but give me a jingle and we can figure something out.

The most interesting part about starting with a multi-national firm is the cultural mixing that takes place here. There are project managers from Wales, engineers from the USA and Argentina, contractors from Europe, and college educate inspectors to secretaries from Panama. All of which have different expectations for roles played by employer and employee. So as I sit here typing this blog and asking myself the all important Office Space question of, "What is it, you say, ya' do here?" there are five other people in the room making about half what I make and being more productive than I am.

Another good illustration of this is when I was taken to the LBG corporate apartment where I will be staying until I find a more permanent residence. I was given the use of the office's driver and his vehicle to move my stuff from the hotel where I stayed until this could be arranged. I knew the area where the apartment was nice and furnished, so I asked the driver to help me bring up my stuff to the 13th floor where we would be able to see the canal in the distance. He was shocked to see the quality of the apartment, the view, the tasteful decorations, and the number of channels on the tv. It was a whole different world for him, and I still am not sure if he was able to process how much that place costs and put it in to terms of what he makes per month. It's such a fundamental part of his country that he doesn't even know.

The final case study I will provide for the reader is the one involving the LBG President's visit during my first week here. He had come down to visit the several large projects in the area and to give his personal welcome the new entry-level Project Engineer/Inspector. He was even so kind as to invite me and 49 of my new counterparts to a dinner at an up-scale dinner in a trendy part of town. Being the new guy I was relegated to the last seat at the last table with all the secretaries. I made a series of calculations to discover that the dinner was probably going to cost somewhere in range of $2500 which would include a nice tip. When I casually dropped this estimation it was funny to watch reactions as they calculated how much they made per month and then how many months they would have to work to GROSS what the dinner would cost.

Despite my limited knowledge about the size and scope of corporations it has been interesting to watch some eyes get big this week as they begin to imagine the quantity of money that our company makes. Those eyes would begin to glaze over if I tried to expand that quantity to the canal expansion project or the revenue growth that the canal WILL have. I now know that the growth and the potential of the money that will be created is not understood at the end of the last table, I wonder at what point moving towards the head of the first table will people appreciate what is happening, and I wonder about the quantity of Panamanians (or lack there of) who are sitting beyond that point?