A year into the job, by which time I had figured out what it was that I was doing, was also just about the time when the world had started inching towards what is now the only really means of communication. That is the time when we were introduced to the magic which is email. We actually had a techie come in from the company corporate office in Singapore to install something called ‘software’ in our desktop computers after 
which it was explained to us that henceforth ALL intra company communication was to be handed using this wondrous tool. During office hours we would write out our mails which, after we hit send, would magically manage to get queued up in something called the server which, in turn sometime during the night, when telecom rates were lower, would transmit those queued up mails. The same system being followed by the other offices of the company dotted all over the globe, in the morning when we’d switch on our computers, we would have a deluge of incoming messages, each one with an accompanying beep so that during the first hour or so, the office would end up sounding like a very busy aviary.
This was also about the time that the mobile generation was just about starting to take a couple of baby steps forward. 
The first such step was that interim-preamble-to-big-brother-mobile phone, an innocuous little match box sized gizmo called a ‘pager’. An instrument which in the scheme of things ended up as a product with a very limited life span before it went into oblivion and which probably would not even be a blip on the march towards progress, having in next to no time given way to the mobile. Back then though the pager was almost, though not quite, a must have for anyone who considered him/herself to have ‘arrived’.
Which preamble gives me the opening into the present tale.
One of our company’s main trade commodity lines was Vietnam Rice which would be shipped in from source in vessel loads and warehoused in the port of Jebel Ali. With my forté being trade out of Iran, I was not directly involved with the rice business which commodity was another traders baby. This ‘Mr Rice’ had, over an extended period of time, been offloading large volume parcels of rice to an Iranian gentleman who just happened to be a good buddy of mine. Faisal was a short and portly fun loving character who really enjoyed his tipple. Someone with whom I would fairly regularly spend an evening in some bar or the other. As was the wont of many traders in Dubai, Faisal to considered trade to be a one way street, you get the goods but if you can manage that, 
you don’t pay! Or at least don’t pay until such time as the sellers pressure on you to cough up becomes unbearable. The bottom line being that my friends debt to the company had reached alarming proportions which had a lot of folk rather worried.
Mr Rice Trader going off on his month long vacation back to India, I was requested by the boss that since Faisal was a good friend of mine, in the absence of Mr RT, would I work on him to get him to clear his debt to the company. Which is when the fun began.
Walking into office the next morning, while all the computers were still going mad chirping at each other, I called Faisal’s office. No response. Tried his home number with the same result. Dialled his pager being aware in advance, while my phone number would show up on his instrument, that I’d be stupid to believe that I should be expecting a call in return. I was not disappointed because there was none! All through the day, all I heard on calling either of his numbers, was the phone ringing. Pinging him on his pager elicited no response. Followed the same routine the next day and ended up with the same result.
On day three, annoyed with Faisal for avoiding me, on entering my office I went straight to my phone, dialled his pager number and followed up on that by hitting the auto-repeat dial button and literally kept that pressed all day long. 
Maintained the same frustrating schedule over the next 4/5 days with the same non-result. A week into this routine who should walk in to the office but the elusive Mr Faisal Madani himself in flesh and blood, dressed in a white Kandora and with a wall to wall grin plastered all over his face.
Pissed off as hell with his totally unacceptable behaviour I walked across to confront him but before I could even open my mouth to start the tirade of abuses and expletives which were ready to push their way out from my mouth, Faisal simply lunged towards me with us ending up in a tight bear hug which, while I was still locked against the idiots large and soft belly was followed by:
Me – “How can you do this to me. You’ve really abused my friendship”
Faisal – “Oh come on relax and give me another hug”
Me – “Don’t know what the hell you’re grinning about, but this is not how you treat people. Definitely not friends”
Faisal – “I just want to thank you for all the messages on my pager. After the first couple of pings, I put the pager on silent and turned it on the vibrate mode. Since the instrument is in my Kandora pocket which hangs down so that the bottom end is very close to my crotch, you can’t even begin to imagine what bliss I’ve been in. Even told my wife to stay away from me”.
Incorrigible Faisal had managed to disarm me in next to no time, leaving me with no option but to have a good long laugh at his gall!
Long after I’d moved on from the company and had started my own business, through the grapevine I learnt that Faisal and a couple more of his ilk (though not of his jolly nature) had managed to take the trading company to the cleaners with the company having to down shutters!