Ya Mon, No Problem

In reality, we were very lucky that it didn't rain on our wedding day. Not that there's anything we could have done about it anyway... as a wise local cab driver once said to us, "There is no special time for the rain." For us, that "special time" was exactly twenty-four hours after our wedding. Had we been married at the same time on the following day, there would have been a downpour during the ceremony. Any disappointment I had harbored about the moderately overcast sky during our ceremony was instantly wiped out at the realization of how easily it could have rained instead. A few clouds were nothing.

Jamaicans, in case you didn't know, run on their own time schedule. "Five minutes" can be five minutes or five hours, depending on the mood of the person, their opinion of you, the weather, how much ganja they may or may not have smoked, whether they get attacked by feral cats on their way, etc, etc. Anytime we requested something the response was always, "Ya mon, no problem."

"Ya mon, no problem," I have decided, is the perfect answer to every question. Basically, it's a "yes, of course... just give me five minutes. Five Jamaican minutes."

You may never get whatever it is you've asked for, but it's not their fault. They were totally going to get around to it. Eventually.

One of the other nice things about Jamaica was the fact that my blackberry did not receive internet data. No emails. For 9 days I was blissfully unaware of any and all electronic communications from work. And then, on that last day, we boarded the plane home. I got one last, beautiful, parting view of Jamaica:

About two hours later, we touched down in Miami. I pulled my blackberry out of my purse and looked at it in dread. Here it comes. A week and a half's worth of work emails. I half expected my phone to spontaneously combust from the effort of trying to simultaneously download all the emails that were sure to be waiting in internet limbo.

I turned on the blackberry. It was quiet for a minute. And then: pingpingpingpingpingping... I turned it to vibrate and put it back in my purse, letting it do its thing.

83 emails later, it was finally done uploading. Of those 83 emails, only two were spam and one was personal. The other 81 were all about work. We need this, can you send us that, please explain this, please submit that...

Now, if only I could use my newly found life philosophy. It would go something like this:

Work: We have received your ten-page analysis on the need for a new procedure X. However, we would like to have further detail. Please submit a twenty-page report with this additional detail.
Me: Ya mon, no problem.

Work: We have not yet received your twenty-page report. This is needed to approve the implementation of procedure X.
Me: Ya mon, no problem.

Work: We are still awaiting your report. Please tell us when we can expect to receive it.
Me: Ya mon, no problem.

And so on and so forth until I get fired or at least lose all credibility regarding my ability to meet a deadline. Bummer. Would have made answering those 83 emails a lot easier.