How was your weekend?

Many of you probably watched the World Cup on TV, went shopping, played golf or spent time with family or friends. As for me, I spent much of the weekend in my office. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not a workaholic, however I didn't leave the office for 30 hours straight, and even slept a couple of hours at my desk. I thought about going home a couple of times, but didn't get much more than ten steps out of the building before I decided to go back to my office.

Am I crazy? Not at all. My lengthy stay in the office this weekend was all because 1500 of our staff decided it would be a good idea to lock myself and a few other colleagues in the building overnight, to show their displeasure over a decision that was made earlier in the week. We even made the television news ...

Not content to occupy the property, make lots of noise, and call for the dismissal of senior managers, our striking employees brought their own padlocks to the site, and proceeded to lock all exits from the outside, just in case we were tempted to go home to our families for the weekend. Of course, our in-house security excelled in their responsibilities, with their security skills far better suited to opening doors for guests at a large hotel.

After making a few phone calls, we were eventually joined by sundry Chiefs and Deputy Chiefs of Police, several bus loads of riot police, the Indonesian Secret Service, and a team of scary "heavies" waiting in reserve if needed. Various foreign embassies also had personnel on standby. After our earlier undermanned attempts at extrication during the night, the mass of fancy third world uniforms and important looking officials was apparently sufficiently convincing enough to the demonstrators, and the Police were able to clear a path through the mob quite easily, some 30 hours after I had arrived at the office on Friday.

Today, everything is back to normal, and our staff are all back at work as if nothing had ever happened. Of course, we'll be flat out this week writing cheques to pay the Police and others who "assisted" in resolving the issue.