Productivity... Who needs it?

So what I actually do at work is Project Management, and part of that is determining productivity. It is based on an index where a value of 1 means that you are as productive as the Gulf of Mexico area in the US in 2000. It relates all these projects overseas to how long it would take back at home. A value of 1.5 for Singapore would mean something takes 50% longer there than in the states. Nigeria’s factor is 4. Meaning, anything done here is expected to take 4 times as long. It’s not saying that workers or Nigerian employees are four times as long, but that, for example, building a fab yard in Port Harcourt will take 4 times as long. Before I got here, I always thought that this was a huge exaggeration, but now I am thinking again. Work, not linked to your survival, seems to be a distant second to your family and personal relationships here… and that’s awesome. What sparked this was the fact that it was 7:30 AM and I had been at my desk for half an hour. My cube mate, who got to work was everywhere but at the desk. She was engaging with her coworkers, what a strange concept. It made me realize why things frustrate expats here, because all most of these western expats are interested in is work. That’s what they do, and they get frustrated when others don’t share the same zeal for it. But at the same time, there are benefits to this obsession. Stuff gets done. Here, you throw an eventually in front of that statement. Similarly in Qatar, they would say the phrase ‘En Shalla’ (sp.?) after every request by a westerner, and it meant God Willing aka eventually.