As I sit here at the end of yet another public holiday in Bahrain, I am more becoming sympathetic to the poor businessmen and women who find it so frustrating as well as expensive.
While I run a company in Bahrain, I am also an employee and, like most, used to look forward to our many holidays and make lots of plans to get together with friends for picnics, BBQs, boating, etc. Most of these holidays are in a three-month period from the end of Ramadan to Ashura.
During that time, we have about 10 days and, as frequently the Eids run into a weekend, then there can be two periods of five days off. As the Hijri calendar moves forward by 11 days each year then slowly but surely this holiday period moves from winter into summer.
And as it all started with Eid Al Fitr at the end of June this year then days off have coincided with blistering hot days, which makes it very difficult to organise anything outside.
Never mind the social side, it has been very difficult to do any business since the start of Ramadan. A lot of decision-makers do not want to make crucial decisions in Ramadan and then you have Eid at the end of it.
This year, the summer holidays began right after that again where business decisions are not made as the stakeholders are on holiday. Normally, this all stops at the beginning of September. Schools reopen and we can return to normal business. But no, this year we had Eid Al Adha at the beginning of September.
To give you an example, I had a set of goods waiting in a factory to be shipped to Saudi Arabia and called the purchasers at the beginning of September to arrange payments only to be told that the man who signs the cheque is on leave until September 9.
It then took him a week to go through all his emails and sort out my payment, which meant that these goods, which are desperately needed, sat in the factory for a needless extra two weeks.
Eventually, just last week we managed to get back to some sort of normality and things were starting to happen. Then we have Thursday’s holiday and now Ashura, which will be another long weekend.
That leaves October and November with fortunately no public holidays, hallelujah, before December is decimated with a period from National Day on the 16th till New Year’s day when no one wants to do any work because they are all enjoying the festive season.
As I said once upon a time when I did not run a company, but was a mere wage slave, I rejoiced in all these days off particularly when they were in spring or autumn and we could get out to play but now that part of my income depends on getting business done I just wish they would go away. A bit.
Jackie@JBeedie.com