Mohammed Ammar Bayrakdar

I was sitting in a coffee shop yesterday, a nice one as a matter of fact, and they have their ceilings designed with some facts and proverbs about coffee. The proverb that mainly caught my mind, specifically about coffee, is as follows:

“Good Coffee Should Be Black Like The Devil, And See Through All Things With His Half-Shut Eyes, Hot Like Hell And Sweet As A Kiss”.

I really like that; meaningful and gives you a deep meaning about what good coffee is all about!

Remember the Titans, a great movie. A movie that teaches us that differences between people are not absolutely based on race, but what has been passed down from generation to generation. It is unfortunate how differences are generation inherited when its crap at the end of the day.

Watching this movie may remind us that no such differences exist if you really get to know someone.

A movie I definitely suggest people to watch!!!

Lately, the weather in Jeddah has been amazing and because of that I have been going to a coffee shop with some close friends to enjoy the weather, smoke some sheesha, and watch a game or two. Because we sit long durations, it gives me time to think; something which I like to!!!

Anyhow, I just like to sit back, some my sheesha and rethink the past; the good times, the bad times, and the mediocre times. Whether it being personal life, work life, and so on. The question that keeps popping in my head and I find quite hard to answer is, “Where is my life going?”. Now, sometimes it is right to make predictions based on history, however I have noticed that with this question I cannot seem to do so. I guess there is a reason for people not knowing about the unknown future; it is an adventure not knowing what your future holds rather discovering it and making it your past as you age through life.

One thing I do know, the reason why I like to reminisce about the past to recall the good things I have done, the fun times I had, and the adventures I experienced. I guess we all hope that we learn from our mistakes, and I just hope that years down the line I will not regret how I deal with my future.

On a final note, “Learn from your past to pave your future”.

Lately, work has been quite hectic. One of the projects that I am responsible for has gone some what south due to a number of reasons (not relevant to this discussion). Anyhow, the last two weeks have been quite tough; especially for this project. The last week has I put in a total of 75 hours just to try and smooth out the tension at work. While this took a major negative tool on my health, I do believe that it was totally worth it.

This week, I walked into my CIO’s office with the flu, unshaved, blood shot eyes, and barely holding my stance. His first words to me where, “Ammar, what happened to you? Why are you not smiling?” My first response to him was because of the problems we are facing and I am trying to do my best to make this project succeed. He had an amazing response. The punch line of his conversation was that there always are problems, but it shouldn’t have a negative effect on me to an extent that I don’t smile anymore.

This got me thinking a little. Could it be that I am taking my work to personal? Could it be that I let my work and my worries get ahead of me? Could it be…? I think it is very important that personal and professional are not confused and mixed up with each other. While it is easier said than done, it is true. It actually is the best thing to do. Leave work every day and leave everything behind for the next day. Taking it home with you will do nothing but have a negative effect on you when you go home.

Currently, I am consulting in one of the banks in the Saudi Arabia (don’t know if I will pertain this). Anyhow, I am managing what used to be “the” major project in the bank. We bought a very powerful product and the vendor has spent the past couple of months tailoring the product to the Bank’s needs.

While the vendor has been very professional, something very interesting happened between the vendor and I last Tuesday and Wednesday. There seemed to be a very simple problem with all documents in the system; the format of the date was incorrect. On Tuesday, this was communicated to the vendor and late Tuesday night their response was that they needed a total of 5 working days to fix this MINOR problem. To be frank, I snapped. I couldn’t believe that such a simple problem required a 5 day solution. Anyhow, I decided to “make noise” and challenge the vendor with the time period specified. On Tuesday, I responded to the vendor and requested a justification for the time period specified.

On Wednesday, at around 1:00 PM, I called up the vendor and after a short discussion they said they will reconsider whether there is a faster workaround for the problem. At 9:00 PM, I received an email saying that the problem, along with other reported problems, has been fixed.

The moral of this discussion is “Challenge”. Don’t accept anything from anyone on the spot. By a small and simple question or comment to challenge whoever, you could get what you want when you want (maybe where you want).

So, it’s been a while since I blogged; really don’t know why actually. Anyhow, throughout the year I have traveled to a number of places and interesting things seem to happen to me on the airplane. Two of the most interesting things happened on a Kingfisher flight from Mumbai to Delhi where the inflight theme song was Candle in the wind; the song Elton John sang for the late Princess Diana.

Most recently, on one of my trips back from Syria, the airlines I flew on decided to put the lucky number 666 as the flight number. Out of all the flight numbers, why would anyone chose that number? That is just a cursed number.

I am pretty sure future flights will hold more interesting things!!!

I can’t believe it, the wait was long but it was completely worth it. My Masters Programme Manager contact me today to inform me that I have been awarded a Masters Degree in Information Systems Management and that I was awarded an ‘A’ for my Dissertation Paper.

I am very happy to have made this major achievement at such an early stage in my life. Next thing is to sit and plan what my next achievements are.

In June 2006 I began my Masters in Information Systems Management with the University of Liverpool. The programme consists of 8 intensive courses; each course 8 weeks long, and a dissertation for 9 months.

I began working on my dissertation on March 2008 and submitted my final dissertation paper towards the end of November 2008. While the entire dissertation journey has been a tiresome and interesting one, the waiting period for my final grade is painful. I will not know my final pass/fail grade until the beginning of June 2009.

I was able to continue my life normally for the past couple of months, but lately I have been thinking about the final grade a great deal. There are about two weeks left and the that thought just keeps on popping up in my head. Everytime it pops up my heart beats, my hands sweat, and my feet tremble. I just want this phase of my life to be successfully over so that I can focus on other important things.

Edging towards the date of when I get the phone call from my Programme Support Manager gets harder and harder every day. The wait has been long, painful, and while its almost over, hopefully the end will be nothing farther than success. I pray that Allah gives helps me in this somewhat hard time and grants me what I am looking for.

A recent statistics showed that there were a total of 175 million users on facebook. While I am a Facebook user, I am not a fanatic, but simple stuff. I use it as a way to keep intouch with all my friends and know what’s new in their lives.

Anyhow, Facebook recently made changes to its interface….again!!!! When I went to my home page I found a great deal of my friends posting messages of dislike in regards to the new interface. And if I remember correctly, the same set of messages were posted when Facebook made the first set of changes to its interface.

The only reason I find this interesting is because it shows that people are still not able to easily cope with changes. Simple changes made to an interface of a website and people are not that too welcoming about it.

For me, 1 year back I would have said that I am in the same pool of people who are not easily able to cope with changes. Recently, I have changed that I am continuously changing my behavior to cope with any changes that are introduced into my life.

Ever since I moved to Jeddah I have been buried with work. From Masters to work at the bank, I barely get enough time to socialize or go out and have me some fun. Anyhow, recently there were some advertisements that Ahmed Ahmed from the Axis of Evil will be coming to Saudi Arabia for a show.

I was interested, went with a friend and bought the tickets, and just waited for the event. Now, at some point in time I was a little skeptical about the event due to some secrecy issues, but I wanted to see how it is going to end. The day before the event, there were some announcements that Ahmed will show up in a coffee shop to prove that he is in Jeddah and that the show will take place. So, I went and waited and the guy really did show up. I took a couple of photos with him, had a small side talk with the guy and left (He seems like a pretty cool guy).

Luckily, the event took place and well it was a real difference than my usual typical day. I look forward for any future events in Jeddah.

Here is a photo of Ahmed and myself the day before the event.