From Dubai... with love

From Dubai with love….

Exactly 54 days ago arrived in the chilly United Arad Emirate called Dubai. Some may have asked themselves “Why Dubai”. Why leave behind a wonderful job in Johannesburg, the best friends in the world and my greatest passion “ministry”. Well you will find out after the next year or two. But for now I am going to share my experiences here with you.

This week I want to share with you an experience I had last night at a Gloria Jean’s Coffee shop at the Business Bay Towers in downtown Dubai. Business bay is quite a trendy area where you will find many expats climbing the corporate ladder. The Executive Towers are located on Dubai's Sheikh Zayed Road worth a whopping 2.5 billion AED. It consists of 10 high-rise freehold residential towers, one commercial tower, one luxury hotel tower, and a two-level shopping mall. The residential towers are labeled from A to M, with 28 to 52 storeys. Amenities at The Business Bay Executive Towers will include a plaza level (courtyard), swimming pools, jogging track, clinics, health clubs, children's playgrounds, fountain yards, gardens, and covered walkways. So it’s quite a posh area although still under construction.
Business Bay is also where a lovely couple Ramsay who is a full time musician and guitar technician and his wife Elena who is an executive at Emirates Airlines live. They have become really good friends to me over the last few weeks while here. They basically took me under their wings, shared with me the in and outs of Dubai culture and lifestyle. So every Monday we get together at their place at 19:30 for an Open Lounge evening with other friends and new comers to Dubai. It’s pretty easy to get there; I just get on top the train close to work and get off about 200 meters from their Tower.
So back to Gloria Jeans. I walked in as normal to get a quick take-away cuppachino just outside Tower K. Waited for 5 minutes for the attendant to finish his mobile conversation with I suppose a staff member. Kinda listened to what they talked about… Anyway I then put my order, he rang it up. 16 Derms, took out 50 derms and gave it to him. Suddenly he just gave me a stare. I asked him what’s wrong and he asked me if I don’t have anything smaller. I checked and said, ok, let me give you 56 derm as it’s the smallest I have. Then he gave me a grin and still paused before he took the money while telling me that this is his last four 10 derm notes.
At that moment I had to really hold myself back, as the place was quite small with many people sitting chatting away. And I still had my company (Melia Dubai) golf shirt on. Not the right time to make a scene. But it really made me think about service in general. Daily you see tons of adverts of company wants you to buy their product. Why… Because somewhere along the line they lost the ones they had and now have to try and convince us to come back. But as far as I’m concerned they Gloria Jean’s (doesn’t matter how nice the coffee is) has lost me. I’m the customer who will never come back. That’s my defense from being pushed around. And I will share this experience with my friends, and they with theirs…

So the not so shabby colored guy with the Melia Dubai golf shirt is important after all hey… Till next time. Adios!