Work Stuff

Since I came to Dubai for work I guess I should explain what I am doing here. I am working for an oil and gas services company called Schlemberger. It was originally French (hence the name) but is now world wide. Their top competitor is Haliburton. The office in Dubai is their Global Services Center otherwise known as their international finance center. This office is in charge of the consolidation and reporting for financial statements and financial reports. The managers here have put together a very eclectic body of work for us to do over the next two months. There are approx. 160 people in this office, all of which are very intelligent and very worldly (aka. from all over the world). Everyone in the office is also very nice and welcoming.  The people are broken up into functional groups ranging from 1 to 10 people. As interns we will spend some time with each group to get exposed to each area they cover. I believe the goal of our internship here is to be exposed to each aspect of this office and get a little experience in each area. 

The office is driven by reporting deadlines (month end, quarter end, and year end). We arrived just in time for the quarter end rush- which is why for our first two weeks we are working six days a week with only a one day weekend. Things should calm down in a week or two and we should be on a more regular schedule. We also must complete a good size project and make a presentation at the end of the internship. I think it is mostly to show what we have learned and to have practice working on an extended project and use our presention skills. We work from about 8:30 - 5:30, Sunday - Thursday. Although, like I was saying before sometimes longer and sometimes on Friday as well. Today we worked until 7:30 (that's an 11 hour day!! yuck!)