Escape from Dubai - BBC2 right now.

I can see the argument for it in particular sectors, but then some european companies operating in the same can be equally guilty of that! It would be interesting to know in which area your experience is from? There is a difference between cultural differences and regulatory ones too, so again it depends what we are talking about really. My first comment was more about the latter, I certainly had a lot of concerns about the former though

meltonblue (U10617)

It spans telecoms and pharma - odd combo I know.

But one company is as legit as they come... it has to be... but their local reps are doing all sorts of deals because they claim that's the only way to do business.

Audits are fun!

To be fair, it's probably worth saying this is over 8 years ago now.

Ah I'm in pharma too, but linked to IT and finance rather than telecoms so I can equate! We've recently started dealing with China, and that's been very...challenging to say the least.

With the middle east, the various countries are progressing at very varying rates with this so eight years does make quite a difference depending on where you're talking about. Bahrain, doesn't feel like it changed much to me since my dad worked there over thirty years ago at times!

comment by meltonblue (U10617)
posted 1 minute ago
Ah I'm in pharma too, but linked to IT and finance rather than telecoms so I can equate! We've recently started dealing with China, and that's been very...challenging to say the least.

With the middle east, the various countries are progressing at very varying rates with this so eight years does make quite a difference depending on where you're talking about. Bahrain, doesn't feel like it changed much to me since my dad worked there over thirty years ago at times!
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I'm not in the industry - it was a client of mine in my last job.

Long story but our MD was an absolute arrse of a sales man and got himself into all sorts of deals that we weren't geared up to provide. One of our Directors found himself in a meeting with our local reps and the company reps - totally out of their depths and having an argument about how to get a deal done.

Hilarious stories though about the local guys in Kuwait and Saudi telling the English guy to basically fack off home and let the locals sort the deal out. They hated being told to fall in line and do the deal on paper with a contract.

In all honesty it's only just occurred to me how out of date these experiences are!

They do stick with you though, everyone’s guilty of that even if they think they aren’t!

comment by meltonblue (U10617)
posted 7 seconds ago
They do stick with you though, everyone’s guilty of that even if they think they aren’t!

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I only ever went to two meetings out there and it just felt like everyone was at it.

One was a sales meeting and it was one of the funniest yet cringeworthy moments I've ever experienced. We were told in no uncertain terms that there shouldn't be any swearing, shouting etc.

We had this brash American guy who was brought in as a Director and after about 45 minutes he was asked a question about service levels. I kid you not, he stood up and said something like 'listen, you're my client. if you tell me you want to see my diick, I'll get my diick out now and slap it on the table.' whilst don't the motion of it.

Absolute stunned silence in the room.

They may have been looking for a bung but at least they didn't say anything like that!

doing, not don't*

I know someone exactly like that!

comment by Super Ed (U22147)
posted 1 day ago
comment by Kung Fu Cantona 🙏🏼 🇵🇸 (U18082)
posted 1 hour, 31 minutes ago
Is Arab a religion? No it’s a race like being Jewish.

RDD will soon be banned again, it’s coming.
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Being Jewish just means you follow Judaism.
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No it doesn’t JUST mean that you silly twaaaaat