An alien in Abu Dhabi - Hardcover

Have you ever felt that you were an alien? Not because of pointy ears, but because you have suddenly realised you are very different- fundamentally at odds with the way certain others think and behave.

This book takes us through the author's last six months of employment in a significant UAE company, where he established and led a large and very capable IT business applications team. It builds to a crunch point where his further challenge of questionable decision making and appeal to logical argument became futile because of counter culture in direct line senior management. Company "leaders" shockingly appeared to encourage disgruntled junior staff to secretly fabricate misrepresentation of the author in order to dismantle his strong credibility. Despite the unflinching loyalty of seventeen out of nineteen of his direct reports, his position as an alien player in the company hierarchy was untenable.

Why do we have contrasting perceptions of the reality of "proper" business conduct? How serious are the repercussions of this? How can we reconcile opposing views in a world where "fake news", and other misinformation, becomes commonplace as technology and circumstances (such as a virus pandemic) "abet the warping of truth and the normalisation of lies"?

The author addresses these questions as he describes his own experience in the UAE context, interjecting lessons learned from forty-five years in IT with many other organisations and similar "contentious" players. Always touching on his inbred scientific approach, he connects observations and uses reason to piece together a best-guess jigsaw picture, that provides valuable insights to the disquieting affairs that might occur in any company... including yours!