Milá Sally…

Dear Sally, yet another overnight flight through Dubai. That’s one thing I still can’t learn and probably never will. Arrive fresh and usable. Even after all these many trips and many years. The years don’t seem to be helping, but rather hurting. I’m older and more worn out. Less resilient.

I try everything: drinking, not drinking. Eating, not eating. To read, not to read. To sleep, not to sleep. Listen to music, watch a movie or do nothing at all… In the end, it always ends up the same – I land in Dubai in the middle of the night, sleepy, tired, sullen, squinting in the artificial light of fluorescent lamps and stumbling through the huge frosted corridors of the airport towards the transit hotel, trying to avoid colliding with other passengers who rush past me in different directions in search of their plane, drinks or shopping.

In Europe, the sign of comfort in the winter months is warmth, here in Dubai the sign of luxury is a good cold, optimally 16´C, when it is 40´C outside even after sunset. I’m gnashing my teeth in an unwelcoming environment full of noise, people and harsh light. The living termite mound is empty and quiet, basically a zen hill compare to this place, where I am now. How anyone can voluntarily and joyfully travel to Dubai for a holiday completely escapes me. If I didn’t have to be her, so I’m certainly not here. And certainly not at night.

A kingdom for a bed, darkness and silence. 8 hours until departure to Prague. About 5 hours I have a chance to sleep in a transit hotel at the airport – but that’s only if everything goes smoothly. Of course, I’m also counting on being able to have a cup of tea for breakfast in the morning, shop for little things for my kids, and then catch last call for boarding in other words – last minute boarding, and usually I am indeed the last one.

 Dear Sally, I really don’t like this, and a poor patch for it is that I fly only Business or First Class where the professional flight attendants take exemplary care of me and try to fulfill every single wish, even the unspoken ones. But the only real one – to be at home, in peace, in my own place and with my own beloved – they cannot fulfill.

 It’s one o’clock at night local time. In the Maldives, they have three. I have Maldivian time set on me, as I am travelling from the Maldives after another of my many business trips, and I have had quite a few nights where I haven’t slept more than 4-5 hours. Total fatigue. Sleep deprivation. Inability to smile and wait patiently for something. Inability to tolerate any discomfort. I am a high starter. This is the state my husband used to call me at home – like Pershing just before takeoff, and he rightly warned the kids to get out of my way, forget about the yelling, arguing and musical instruments for once, and let me sleep peacefully especially the first evening when I got home. A very correct and prudent course of action in this regard.

This time I was met by a busboy from the hotel (sorry for my English, I mean Front Office Welcome Manager Assistant) at the exit of the plane, a sign with my name on it in his hand – nice. He took my heavy backpack off my back – polite and took me to the so called Executive floor, i.e. the better floor where the rooms are bigger and better equipped and of course more expensive as well. And also a reception area where you don’t stand, but sit nicely in a chair after the “tiring” plane journey. All the time he was positively and friendly chatting with me, telling me that he was from Sri Lanka and that he would stay in Dubai for 3 years or so to earn enough money to build a house and then return home to the green tea plantations and mountains – oh yeah, I totally understand him, I’d rather have mountains and jungle than the jungle of concrete, glass and steel in Dubai. But work is work and requires certain sacrifices, including discomfort and compromise.

And yet HE has kids at home who he only sees once a year on vacation and his parents take care of them. That’s the norm in many Asian countries. The grandparents raise the grandchildren at home and the parents earn outside the home for long months… I see my darlings pretty much all the time. A great gift, I wouldn’t want to miss out on their childhood. I may be a working mother, so in my mother’s eyes I’m actually a raven mother, but my children don’t suffer from lack of attention and motherly love I believe.

But back to the airport and the transit hotel

The room on the Executive floor really looked more luxurious, it had a massage chair (does every tired traveller really appreciate it when he wants to sleep till the morning?!), a spacious bathroom with a big bathtub (I don’t want to spend a minute in it, I want to sleep!), a huge bed (well, finally something interesting for me), 3 types of pillows, a duvet like a spider’s web, and only one – but from my point of view very crucial – problem: a terribly loud air conditioner. Terrible is an understatement. In short, it was like having a hairdryer held close to your ear that has long since passed its better years and is just roaring horribly. And every now and then, someone would turn the roar off and on again. Well, NO. I don’t like that. I’ve tried the standard way – i.e., the „off“ button to turn the noise off. No way, the machine apparently has a central brain and won’t listen to the guest locally… so I tried to talk it into at least reducing the power by switching it to minimum blowing mode – and alas – nothing changed. AND ENOUGH! I’m not fighting with the air conditioning at 2.00 am!!! So I’m going to call the front desk and have them get me another room or go turn off the AC.

It was very hard to find any proper numbers in the big guest bible book and there was no one answering the phone afterwards. Well, at least they had that fancy leather-bound booklet made with their hotel information! Not to mention that instead of a huge booklet with a ton of irrelevant information, a tiny sign or even just a button with the name of the reception on the device would have been enough… Who thinks of this or rather doesn’t think of it?! I storm out of the room, furious, back to the reception desk and declare in a raised voice that I don’t give a damn about the super executive room where the air conditioning doesn’t work and how come no one answers my phone.

The tiny petite receptionist – probably Expat from Thailand or from Philippines – walks with me with the terrified expression of a bunny who has just met a hungry cobra. She summons my busboy. Together we all try to sort out the malfunctioning air conditioning. There’s more of us, we’re not going to worry about the air conditioning after all! We just have to win! …Nope…

It’s a futile effort. In a raised voice, I immediately demand another room so that I can get at least 4 hours of sleep, and under the weight of my frustration, I also complain again about how lousy their service is when they don’t answer the guest’s phone. Oops, I shouldn’t have done that! The tiny little one starts frantically checking to see if the phone is working and dialing the numbers dialed by me to see if I can read and tap the phone dial correctly. YES! What a surprising discovery – I can, in the Czech Republic we have had compulsory schooling since the time of Maria Theresa and we are literate!

Unsurprisingly, no one picked up the receiver on the other side either, I just lost another 30 minutes of precious time I could have been sleeping… So the petite one then tells me the miraculous next number (5 digits, I can’t remember…) apologizes madly that it was an unfortunate coincidence and meanwhile the busboy successfully arranges for the air conditioner to go dead and silent…

…Silence reigns through the room… peace and tranquility… both of which immediately return to my soul as well. I smile, say thank you, flit through the bathroom for my evening hygiene and after 10 minutes of futile efforts to turn off all the lights in the room (somewhere the switches were so cunningly hidden that only pulling them out of the socket helped…), I flop into bed after a while and blissfully close my eyes in the silence that is disturbed only by the distant announcements from the airport tarmac, muffled by the double glazing in the windows. The transit hotel is located right at the airport itself, part of the departure lounge. This has the advantage that you don’t have to go anywhere outside the airport and then come in the morning. You’re right on the scene, so to speak. It’s beautiful. At least 4 hours of sleep saved, which counts. I’ll arrive home in at least somewhat usable condition and Pershing won’t be necessary comparison this time.

HOW NAIVE and what a BIG MISTAKE. That sneaky air conditioner was just waiting for me to fall asleep to start! Around 3.00am it tricked me – turned on, I got terribly scared, flew out of bed in a rage and went to fight it the way the Sri Lankan busboy before me had managed.

 WOW, this bitch didn’t give in! I was running around the room in my nightgown, so basically half naked and angry, like a caged tigress, wondering how I was going to get the most sleep with the least amount of effort… I chose the method of calling the front desk for help. I hadn’t memorized the number, but I had (miraculously) figured out how to dial the last number called on the designer phone I wouldn’t otherwise want to have in my house… so I dialed it… poor little Tiny was still on duty, it was not her lucky day: Cobra woke up, merged with Tyger into one being, and yelled at her on the phone for someone to remotely shut that bitch down immediately, or I wouldn’t know myself and would be such an embarrassment to them that they could pack up their hotel business. Terrified Tiny promised a solution and help and it really didn’t take long – the busboy, who really can’t do much more than me, as we both could see more than an hour ago, knocked on the door after a while… Well, that was really too much for me. In a hundredth of a second, I assessed that getting up, getting dressed and dealing with the same problem the same way as before is completely useless, so I ignored the persistent knocking of the busboy and dialed the receptionist again, pale with rage  only to learn that they couldn’t do it remotely except by sending someone to try to fix it on the spot. Well you can’t imagine me Sally, screaming at her in complete frustrated rage, my emotions completely out of control… poor lady, it really wasn’t her fault. But I didn’t help myself at all. Even the frustration of screaming didn’t subside, quite the opposite. The idea of starting meditation or breathing exercises to control my emotions didn’t even cross my mind.

The result? That sneaky screaming bitch of an air conditioner turned on and off about 3 more times in one night, I was greeted with an apologetic look at the front desk in the morning, the hotel manager trotted over, promised to refund my money, arrange my next visit for free, and bowed down to my knees, which I could not properly even realize, let alone appreciate, without sleep. So – here again, not all gold is gold that glitters.

             A few months passed and I visited the same hotel again on my Male – Dubai and Dubai – Prague trip. This time, I strongly requested my wonderful assistant to book me a normal, standard room, not the Executive floor where I had so enjoyed the air-conditioning last time, hoping I would be lucky enough to get a quiet or off air-conditioning in a regular, cheaper room. In vain. Granted, the room was on a standard floor, didn’t have a massage chair, just a shower, a much smaller fruit basket, and a smaller surface area, but that bitch of an air conditioner, well, THAT was THE SAME there. With the practiced movement of a connoisseur, I walked over to the control panel and tried (in vain) to turn the air conditioning off with the „off“ button in front of the busboy (Sorry, Front Desk Welcoming Assistant). Resolutely I declared that THIS IS a NO GO and went back to the reception desk where was another petite young lady from Philippines.  She didn’t know me yet but was unlucky enough to be on duty that night and had no idea how much more fun she was going to have with me that night. And that she would recognize me and not in my best form. But she will certainly remember me for the next time. The combination of Cobra and Tiger is unforgettable.

Quite like in other better hotels, as soon as I started complaining loudly at the front desk and looked severely dissatisfied – they immediately offered me an Upgrade, or an increase in the standard of the hotel room for the same price. She mumbled something about how they were very sorry and that they would give me their best suite and that they hoped I would be happy, and she furiously fussed about something on the phone for a while. In my head, the hours of time allotted for sleep were slowly ticking down, adding to the adrenaline whose presence was guaranteed to chase away sleep. So I was reliably starting to get back into the mode of an angry tigress combined with a hungry cobra. Fortunately, Busboy had no idea about my transformation, which even Kafka’s Beetle wouldn’t be ashamed of, so he bravely got a key card from the best suite and set off with bows and apologies to show me the way. He was fairly certain of the effect of his actions at the end of that journey. It was quite long, as long and extensive as the entire transit hotel at the airport. In fact, the best suites are located at the complete opposite end from what the reception desk has. Probably so that the noise from the reception when there’s another angry tiger doesn’t disturb a peacefully sleeping guest. So I just prayed that I wouldn’t make the trip to the other (understandably executive) floor and the far corner for nothing.

I don’t know if praying didn’t help because I was in a Muslim country and had to invoke Allah or simply because I am actually an atheist infidel, but the fact is that we arrived in a beautifully prepared super large luxury suite with gold accessories, which also had a spacious walk-in closet, was much bigger, cornered, had lots of windows and glass walls – and it took me 10 seconds to realize that I had gone there for NOTHING. First of all, this room even had 3 air conditioning units! And of course ALL of them were horribly loud and of course there was NO way to turn off ANY of them, and secondly – this luxury suite was located right nicely above the loud Emirates announcement of plane departures and delays, and since it’s a really big airport in Dubai and something is departing or being delayed there every minute, the announcement was running pretty much constantly. Even the double glazed windows couldn’t dim it.

SO NO, NO WAY. The busboy was confidently teething, certain that I hadn’t seen such a paradise anywhere else, and asked how I liked the suite and if everything was OK. The tigress gritted her teeth and sniffed her prey – meaning the busboy – to point out to him that absolutely NOTHING was OK here and walked briskly back to the reception before the busboy locked the super-luxury suite. I already knew the way myself, I wasn’t going to waste time waiting for him.

The young Thai or Filipino woman at the reception winked in surprise. She hadn’t expected to see me so soon. Neither did I. And I wasn’t happy about it. Neither was she. So I explained to her in a moment that they can keep the suite for someone who is a sadomasochist and they can kindly give me a regular room, but nice and close to the reception, because I don’t intend to go on the Prague x Prčice march (pretty popular and long march – contest in the Czech rep.) and therefore I don’t need to train for it even in their hotel, where the corridors are kilometers and kilometers long and I would rather actually sleep at least a few hours before my flight.

So after much apologizing I got a normal room, a short walk from the front desk. The Thai/Filipino woman was shocked, apparently no one in her time of service has ever asked for a downgrade from their best gold-lined suite. And no one had complained about the very awkward location of the most luxurious suite, with no soundproofing solution whatsoever… So her poor fingers were tapping that she had to type everything into the system twice, since the first time had a lot of typos. The enraged Tigress was alertly and significantly watching her every move on the keyboard, pointing out the typos. This was clearly not making her feel at ease for her work.

I’m not naive. After getting the room card from her, I invited her to come straight with me and assured her that she didn’t even have to bother the colleague / busboy. So she went. Like if to an execution. And she had reason to be afraid. My hunch didn’t fail me. This room was admittedly standard-sized, or rather small, tidy, for two, with fruit, a shower… all of that was true, and it was also true that the air-conditioning roared absolutely horribly. Apparently the word roared and rattled is the only one that can adequately explain the sounds the technology made.

The cobra (i.e. me) loomed menacingly over Bunny (i.e. the receptionist), which was playful considering my 175cm and her weak 150cm, and looked down on Bunny, began to hypnotize him with her gaze and hissed (ahem, forgive me dear Sally for the hyperbole, I know cobras don’t hiss, but I did): „Could you PLEASSSSSSE turn off the air-conditioning? !“ The bunny shook his head in dismay and pressed the appropriate button with a trembling paw. Ha, there was no surprise – NOTHING happened. Nothing followed, the air-conditioning kept on roaring merrily. It almost seemed to be gloating.

The cobra, still erect to a menacing height above the bunny, remained significantly silent, lightning flashing from its eyes. Poor Thai or wherever she was from, she had just met her nightmare. Too bad she didn’t trade shifts with her friend today!  She tried to push all the buttons, sweating behind her ears. The Cobra hissed something like, „Sssssso I’ve been here for the ssssssssecond hour of my ssssssssleep, dealing with your broken air-conditioning, and I already know what it’ssssss going to be like for the resssssst of the night, when I don’t get any sssssleep, pay for my ssssstay at the front desssssk in the morning, and fly home, annoyed and not getting any sssssleep…“ The Thai woman from the Philippines tried in vain to resist and assure me that in a little while everything would be sorted out. As if she hadn’t said anything… Cobra’s position remained unchanged.

She kindly offered help from the Engineering department. I’ve had a grudge against them in general for a long time. Ever since I searched in vain for a non-existent door in the toilet at Vienna airport, where some chumps should have fixed it in time and blew it off just like their colleagues did with this air conditioner and its preventive maintenance.

So I responded to the suggestion, „And how many minutesssss will I wait for your colleague to come and ssssssort it out?“ It turned out that the colleague had apparently gotten the message that I was a VVIP = Very Very Important Person, or a Very Very Idiotic Problemmaker and rushed in rather quickly. He looked at me, at the Bunny, at the air conditioning and said that there was simply no way to turn it off. Nowhere. In any of the hotel rooms. Not in the Executive or the Standard. I rolled my eyes at him and gasped. It kind of took me out of the „hypnotizing hissing cobra“ role and must have necessarily had a „fish gasping for air“ expression. But I couldn’t help it. I really wasn’t expecting that. It took a while for my tired, but rage-fueled brain to process.

 Well, at least we knew where we stood. I breathed in a loud, lung-busting reaction. The Thai woman blinked her tiny eyes at the man in overalls, and sputtered quite desperately: „Is there really NOTHING AT ALL that can be done about this?“ he sensed the shivering stuffiness, understood the situation, and fortunately or thankfully for Allah, decided to gallantly rescue his colleague. He reached for a mirror that was hanging on the wall next to us, grabbed it with all his strength from the side, the mirror came loose, opened up and revealed a bunch of fuses and circuit breakers. The technician switched one of them to the OFF position and in a second the room was blissfully silent…

 I lit up. And gave them both a happy smile. Cobra disappeared, Tigress became a cute smiling kitty, who sang a sincere „thank you for the great solution of a difficult situation“.

I’m really not demanding… I don’t need THAT much. I just need a silent air conditioner that doesn’t wake me up in the morning and doesn’t blow me out. I said goodbye to both of them and was happily in limbo within minutes. And smiling in the morning, all smiles, as if nothing else was even in my repertoire. The little Thai girl smiled happily at the reception desk back to me and waved me goodbye in a very long and sincere way. The bad dream had vanished. The nightmare would not take place.

A month later, on another trip to the same place, I didn’t bother with formalities like: how do you turn off your air conditioning…. Because I remembered the technician’s trick well. And so, as soon as the door of my assigned room slammed behind me, I looked around, listened – nodded in satisfaction: yes, it was humming, even roaring – and started to slam the mirror. Damn, it wouldn’t move. I wondered if it was from the left or the right. Where were the magnetic handles? I examined it for a while and then I lost patience and got really worked up. The mirror opened, and instead of telling me who was the most beautiful in the world, because that would have been a waste of time, it revealed another secret: about thirty circuit breakers, in three rows above each other, each obviously from something else, and they had one thing in common: they weren’t labeled.

I’m not that tech-savvy to understand what’s what and what turns off the air conditioner without a description. Plus, I was afraid of setting something off and causing a false alarm. So at 2:30 in the morning, I systematically started researching what the breaker might be for. After a while of futile efforts – they were as similar as eggs to eggs – I began to think differently. You’re in Dubai. Most often they have to sort out air-conditioning problems here. Concentrate, be like them, which one is it?! I felt like the bomb squad, or the famous heroes who have a very short time to figure out which of the few wires to disconnect so the bomb doesn’t explode. AND IT WORKED! I DID FIND IT!

Because it was the only one marked with a regular pencil – it had an almost invisible line above. Apparently, one of the colleagues wanted to make the others‘ difficult job easier, and since it is not his duty to create SOPs, he marked THE ONE correct switch, albeit with an ordinary, hard-to-read pencil. I clicked it, the damn AC went silent and a feeling of absolute peace, happiness and joy came over me that I was able to take care of it pretty quickly and on my own!

I enjoyed the following hours of sleep tremendously, moreover feeling my overwhelming victory over the local air conditioner, which simply doesn’t stand a chance against me anymore. In the morning, I said a nice goodbye to the front desk officers, and I trust that the next guest didn’t call them to tell them that the air conditioning wasn’t working, because the housekeeping are supposed to check and report it as part of their cleaning process, and the room was suspiciously quiet. Well, you gotta admit, Sally, I really did it!

My sense of total victory was then spoiled a little by the sound of a fluorescent light bulb whistling on the ceiling in the airline business lounge as I had my morning tea. But I’m really not going to do THAT for them anymore. I don’t sleep there, I’ll survive. Next time I’ll have my tea somewhere else.