qsyenroute
Amen to that. I was in Oman at the same time and can draw many parallels with what you say. Particularly the SATCO, he certainly was one of the boys. Supported his staff, fought their corner, brought calm and reason to attempts by the ATCOs' employer to react to demands by the DGCA to fire someone before reading an incident report, which often exonerated the ATCO. More than one ATCO's job was saved by his efforts.
Despite having set up the Muscat FIR and ACC (which the DGCA received all the credit) and set up an en-route charges system which made the government over $1million per month (which in the early 80s was very serious money) he got shafted because he knew too much about the DGCA Directors' social habits/lives during the many official trips that he was required to accompany them on. Probably still happens today?
The term "stress" also did not appear in our dictionary, neither did "prima donna"!