Impolite People

While in Amman during the summer months everytime I go to the bank someone parks their car immediately behind my car totally preventing me from getting out of my parking spot until they come back and move their car, sometimes I had to wait five minutes other times I waited for as long as twent minutes. When I go downtown and go to the market for shopping someone usually park their car parallel to my car and deprive me from my ability to get out of the parking spot.In this instance there is no way of knowing who the owner is, he could be someone that went for a short errand, he could be somoeone that went to the mosque to perform one of the five prayors, and he could be simply visiting a friend somewhere in town and drinking coffee with him and totally oblivious to the fact that someone is waiting patientlly to get out of his parking spot and he is blocking his path.When at the end of the day I go back to the building I usually find some one had taken my designated parking spot, I had to go and ring the door bell apartment by apartment a total of ten until I find the person that took my parking spot and kindly ask him to remove his car from my parking spot. It is worth noting that none of these people in any of these incidents ever apologized for violating my rights to having a free passage, they either shrug the incident as something inconsequential or they give you that smirk like hey it is no big deal. There were times when I was assisting my father in law by transporting him to Alhussein Medical City,although there is a huge parking lot at the outskirts of the city designated for visitors and outpatient, and there is a shuttle but that transports people to and from the parking lot to the varios parts of the city medical departments, everyone insists on driving all the way to the main gate of whatever destination they are going and squeezing their cars on the side walks, narrow alleys, and even at the buildings main entrances and exits. Although signs are all over the place warning them that their cars will towed away no one seems to heed the warning or cooperate by parking in the designated parking lot. I don't know if it is only me or indeed there is a problem with people and parking in Amman, no one wants to walk for hundred or two hundred yeards after they park their cars, every one seems to either drop off, pickup, or simply park right at the door of the place wherever they are going. I think that it had something to do with the attitude and the finese of somepeople.What is it that prevents them from wanting to walk those few extra yards, what is it that makes them park behind somone else's car and parallel to other person's car, if there is a legitimate reason I have not been able to figure it out.

Orange Sucks

I take it back, Orange doesn't suck it is the suckiest Internet provider in Jordan.Five months of going back and forth to their offices in various parts of the city, I finally managed to suspend the service order.Actually, there was never any service since I never got connected since my initial application for service, but some how they got tired of me coming back time and time again to check on the status of my order only to be told not yet, there is a glitch, a technician will be out there tomorrow morning, the speed that you requested must be reduced, the Ramadan and the Eid holiday put us behind schedule, we need to look for another nearby location to get you connected.And finally they told me the truth, you simply aren't going to get connected for another six months because there is no services in your area, Orange is going to have to install five to six more tall wooden columns to reach to a location near your place and that might take a lot of time and a host of bureaucratic approvals.When I went to cancel my order the clerk at the front desk informed me that only the office manager has the authority to cancel orders, so I took a number and after waiting for close to an hour my number was called and I walked into the manager's office and very kindly requested to have my order canceled.The manager started haggling with me and goading me not to cancel, my answer to him was that what would you do if you were in my shoes, wouldn't you cancel if you had to wait more than four and a half months without getting connected.His reasoning was that if I cancel I would deprive other people in the same neighborhood from getting connected since Orange had already committed to having that part of the town serviced within the next four to six months.Obviously I wasn't going to wait not event one minute longer.I requested that the manager give me a confirmation about my canceled order since while I was sitting in his office two other people came in and stated that they are still getting billed for Internet services months after they have had it disconnected. The manager couldn't give me anything and stated that it will take couple of months before the cancellation order makes it through the system I''m now wondering if I'm going to be billed for the next two months for a service that I don't have.I'm not going to talk about the nasty attitude the people at Orange had since a lot of the service companies personnel seem to have that nasty gruff attitude while dealing with their customer.This is one of several other other episodes that I encountered during a five months while sojourning in Jordan.Stay tuned.