Get Undressed and Stand Like a Duck

So as promised, here is my second blog this week to talk about my goals for the summer.

It seems very appropriate to do it today as Duncan and I sat in yesterday on a training session which was all about the importance of setting goals!  So here is what i want to achieve by the end of the summer.

Professional Goals

• establish a network of contacts within the Grand Hyatt Dubai
• leave with a good understanding of how a hotel of this size operates and what makes it so successful
• earn how the grand hyatt dubai train and motivate their staff to give such excellent service and compare to training at home to establish what scottish hotels could do differently to improve their customer service standard.  

Personal Goals

• RIDE A CAMEL!
• be a good tourist and see as much of what this city has to offer as possible
• fight against the two evils mentioned in my previous blog and try not to come home fat and penniless

While I’m blogging I might as well fill you in on what has been going on the last couple of days.

This week we were sent to have a medical check up so that the company could process our employment visas.  Every employee that comes into the country must go through this process (and considering only 2% of Dubai’s population are actually natives, that is pretty much everybody).  The process was extremely strange to us.  First of all we were driven forty minutes out of the city to a medical centre which was pretty much in the middle of the desert.  When we stepped inside it was just chaotic, people everywhere walking about like headless chickens because they had no idea what they were doing or where they were meant to go - there was no order whatsoever!  The first stage was a blood test, everyone has to do this to test for HIV and Hepatitis B, if either of these test come back positive the person would be deported immediately.   Once we figured out how to get there we were rushed out into the corridor again where we wandered about until we were eventually herded into an X-Ray room where we were asked to undress and stand like a duck so they could X-ray our chests to check for diseases. (No picture will be uploaded of that unfortunately!) Then we were driven (yes, driven - nobody walks here) to the other side of the building where we had very thorough fingerprints and handprints taken.  Once all the test results are back the company will be able to process our visas - yay. 

Tonight will be a lot of fun.  I am about to go to work, once that is done I am going to rush into town to meet the other interns so we can go up the Burj Khalifa.  If you don’t know, the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world so it will definitely be an experience.  After that I am rushing back to work to work in the ‘Eurotent’ - a marquee set up at the hotel with a massive projector screen that has been screening the eurocup games.  So going up the tallest building in the world and serving beer to excited Germans all in one night - bring it on!