My Dubai Fight Story
So, I wanted to share something that happened back when I was working on that project in Dubai. It wasn’t a fistfight or anything, just one of those tough situations you get into at work sometimes, you know? Felt like a real battle though.
It all started pretty normally. Got assigned this task, fairly big one, client was based right there in Dubai. Seemed straightforward at first. I put together the plan, laid out the steps, everything looked good on paper. Got the initial nod, so I started digging in, getting the work done.
Weeks went by, lots of late nights, lots of coffee. Standard stuff. I was sending updates, making progress. Then, out of nowhere, the main contact person over there just changed their tune completely. Started questioning things we’d already agreed on. Totally blindsided me.
They wanted to add a whole bunch of extra stuff, basically double the work, but kept insisting it was part of the original deal. It absolutely wasn’t. I pulled up the emails, the signed documents, showed them exactly what we agreed. But they just wouldn’t budge. It got really tense.
This went on for maybe two weeks. Back and forth emails, calls that went nowhere. It was exhausting. Honestly, I felt like I was hitting a brick wall. My boss back home was supportive but told me I had to handle it, try to smooth things over without giving away the farm.
That was the real fight: standing firm without blowing the whole deal up. It wasn’t about being right, it was about not getting rolled over. I had to be super careful with my words, stay calm even when they were being unreasonable. It felt like walking a tightrope.
I decided to document everything even more meticulously. Every single conversation, summarized and emailed back to them. Every tiny agreement, noted down. It sounds boring, but that’s what saved me, I think.
Eventually, I had to say, look, we can do the extra work, but that’s a new phase, a new cost. I laid out the options clearly. Option A: finish what we agreed. Option B: define the new work and we’ll quote it separately.
There was a lot of silence after that. For a couple of days, I thought maybe I’d pushed too hard. Then, finally, they came back. They weren’t happy, you could tell. But they agreed to stick to the original plan. No big apology or anything, just a short email saying ‘proceed as agreed’.
Man, the relief. It wasn’t a huge win, more like surviving a storm. Finished the project, got paid, moved on. But I learned a lot. Mostly about sticking to your guns, even when it’s uncomfortable, and keeping records of everything. That Dubai ‘fight’ taught me more than a few smooth projects ever did.
