Many countries have some stringent visit visa requirements and even more so for work or immigration.
On my first trip to Kuwait, well not my first but the first time there happened to be a functioning government back in place. I received a call from a company who had ordered 2 of my machines through a distributor, they said the needed me to assist in the installation and possibly tell them it it would be possible to make some structural changes to them since their customer's requirement had changed from the time the order was placed and the time the shipment had arrived.
They sent me a flight conformation for the next day. I arrived in Holland and the Kuwait visitor and immigrations official at the airport in Holland told me that there was no way I was getting on my connecting flight which was due to leave in an hour. I said OK but I need to call the company in Kuwait and inform them what is going on. When I told them why I would not be arriving the owner of the company asked to speak with the official. After a couple minutes of what sounded like a very heated conversation in Arabic, which I could not understand a single word the official hung up and told me I'm sorry sir but you might as well get a hotel room or take a flight back to the USA you are not going to Kuwait today maybe in a week or so things will get straightened out.
My luggage was pulled and i went and collected it. About 15 minutes before the flight was due to take off I hear my name being paged over the PA to come to the gate. I arrived at the gate about 5 minutes before the flight was due to leave the Official looked very sheepish as if someone had just told him he was worth less than the dust on the floor. He asked for my passport then stamped it in the proper places and said Sir I don't know who you know in my country but someone wants you there very bad, the office of the Emir himself just a few minutes ago called and said that you would be on that plane or it would not be landing in Kuwait without you.
I had, had no idea at the time that the guy I had called in Kuwait was a Sheik with close ties to the leader of that country.