What Am I Doing Here? and Other Questions I Ask Myself Daily

Have you ever had one of those moments in your life when you're like, "How the hell did I get here?"

I had one of those moments last week at work (moving to another country will increase these moments exponentially, by the way.)

Here's what happened:
My hotel, like many Ritz-Carlton hotels, is extremely popular for weddings. But here in the UAE, men and women separate for their wedding celebrations. At a "ladies' wedding," only women only can work. No men are allowed in the room, including male chefs, banquet servers, or anyone else who is paid to be sure these things run smoothly. It makes for an interesting scene when banquet managers can't actually be on the floor to manage, and tiny Filipino women carry trays of food that weigh as much as they do.

Thursday's wedding was for 850 guests, so all ladies in the hotel, including those of us on the sales team with no veritable banquet experience, were asked to help.

In typical Dubai fashion, there was no actual instruction until about 30 minutes before the event. We thought we would be showing guests the way to the restrooms or safe in the coat check room with 850 black abayas, but were shocked to discover that we had sections, and tables, and trays full of Champagne glasses (filled with mocktails, always mocktails.)

I had to steal a stranger's pants from the dry cleaning rack 20 minutes beforehand because the pants they tried to give me were no less than 10 sizes too big and were so short that they would have stayed dry in a flood. In those pants, I looked like Billy the Hobo Clown. But in the stranger's pants, I reluctantly put on the requisite vest and neck tie. They ran out of cufflinks so they had to sew my cuffs together.

If I've painted the picture correctly, by now you know I was looking H-O-T hot. Here's my friend Karen in the amazing outfit. (Her smiling face indicates that it was still very early.)


Even more of a problem than us looking more like men than ladies was that we don't know a damn thing about working a Ritz-Carlton banquet. But no matter. It was showtime and they threw us to the wolves. The wolves in this scenario were ridiculously attractive Emarati women in five inch heels, designer gowns, and enough diamonds to blind you if you stare directly at them.

It was about halfway through the night, after my first spill but before the Bollywood-through-the-ages entertainment, that I asked myself, "what the hell am I doing here?

But even though I don't know what the hell I was doing there, I'm kind of glad I was, even as the time passed into my 17th hour of work that day.