I Don't Hate the Game, I Hate the Players

Every day I wake up a happy person, ready for a new day, and very thankful for what I have.

Then what happens?

I arrive to work.

Every day. Every day. Every frickin’ day.

Venting Some Steam

This goes to every patronizing A-hole who thinks they’re better than waiters, busboys, delivery guys, valets, cleaning ladies, janitors, mail men, maids and any other person who earns a living working their butts off to help us.

To the guy who yelled at the valet outside a restaurant because he wasn’t paying attention.

To Jerk who called the restaurant to bitch about the delivery boy because he was late due to a mistake made by the girl who took the order, and almost got the guy let go.

To the people who through the tips at waiters like they’re slaves.

To every piece of crap who thinks he’s better than them because his shoes and watch cost more than those people’s homes.

This is to the girl who yelled at the cleaning lady who’s probably 30 years older than she is.

To the arrogant boss who cursed at his employees in the hallway last week.

To the woman who keeps shouting at her maid in front of everyone to get her to clean.

This goes to everyone who uses the words “do you even know who I am?”

And to everyone who brags about how much their stuff costs.

I say: first of all, if you can’t find something other than your shoes to be proud of, then maybe there no more to you than just a pair of shoes.

And second, just leave the damn price tag on it, we’ll take a look and based on that decide how we should treat you, after all isn’t that what you basically do?

Where Do You Work?

My job is getting me more and more frustrated every day :( I work as a quality assurance auditor in a hotshot organization, it’s probably the hardest thing to do when you have employees that are very very resistant to change, especially the old 3ammoyat and khaltoyat :( you can’t just bring a petit 18-year-old looking girl to tell people who have been in their jobs for 20 years or more what to do, but the way of doing business has changed so much in the past few years and we need to change the way we handle tasks.

Also, it’s not just the old people that give me a hard time, there are the young “why-bother” guys, these are even harder to deal with, the first thing you hear when you suggest a development in a certain area is “fokkeena la twarteena, talama ma 7ada sa2elna khalleeha mashyeh” which leads to me having no work at all some days, no lots of days, no no, most of days :( then I have “Jerk” who’s the biggest tattletale in the world, because he thinks that’s what Quality Assurance is about!!! He goes to my director’s office, tells him who said what, who’s standing in the parking lot, who’s eating a sandwich, and who ate “sa7nain mansaf mesh sa7en wa7ad” when we celebrated an award! Aaaaaand “Jerk” is trying to become my boss because that position is still vacant and he’s not qualified enough. The problem is, people listen to him because on the outside, “Jerk” seems like a nice guy, very polite, very smart… only for those who don’t know him as well as I do, and can’t hear him when he talks about them in front of me cause he knows I’m not gonna go say anything :(

Anyways, I’ll bet every workplace has a “Jerk” and some others including these:

1. The donkey work specialist: usually someone with low self esteem or a desire to please the boss.

2. The boss’s pet: just like a teacher’s pet, gets away with almost everything, and the boss usually sticks up for them, Jerk here was the Ex-Boss’s pet, but his glory days ended when the ex-boss was let go.

3. The strong business woman: often found wearing pantsuits, very cocky and always acts busy even if she’s not, overuses the terms (action plan, asap, duplication, essential, brainstorming and tool) even when speaking Arabic, but if she’s your boss she will fight for your rights.

4. The catfight girls: a couple of girls at the office, always fighting and pulling each other’s hair. They were best friends at some point, but we know how girl friendships evolve :)

5. The ‘neswaneh’: a woman usually working as an assistant, secretary or accountant, her main topics are what she’s cooking for lunch and how she’s perfect at rolling vine leaves. She has the same advice for every young girl “deeri balek 3ala 7alek w shoufi 7ayatek barra, el bent bel akher ma elha ella jozha w wlaadha”

6. The introvert: always sitting in their office with the door closed and avoids gatherings.

7. The wussy boss: he gets yelled at by everyone, even people working for him, if he’s your boss, your life will be easy in terms of vacations and early leaves, but not in terms of work, he’ll be too afraid to submit anything you do.

8. The “I have so much work” people: act so busy when you ask them for anything, and they always tell you they have priorities and oh so many tasks to do.

9. The gossip girls: these are everywhere, you can’t get away with making a phone call without them talking about it, no matter who you’re calling.

10. The Innamorato\a: a guy or girl, head over heels secretly in love with someone from work, pays close attention when someone mentions their name, and found in a bad mood when that someone talks to somebody else.

11. The bitter single woman: I’m NOT saying all single women are bitter, but these are always jealous when someone gets engaged or married no matter how badly they try to hide it.

12. The frustrated single man: unable to find the wife of his dreams, although his demands are not as hard to meet as they were in the past.

13. The provide-for-a-big-family man: the sole purpose for this employee is to get his barely-enough salary at the end of the month to be able to support his family, not given all his rights and usually has the worst boss.

14. The “off” employee: always off, calling in sick or leaving early. Not the boss’s favorite person.

15. The transferred dude: keeps moving from one department to another, due to arguments with colleagues or boss.

16. The “cool” crew: these believe their positions are the most important for the business, they never hang out with the (in their opinion) low class employees and are always yelling at janitors, secretaries … etc.

17. The newbie: fresh guy or girl, doesn’t know what the heck is going on around them, and who’s who, we’ve all been there at some point.

18. The paranoid guy or girl: always afraid they will be let go, and scared to death when someone who’s not their biggest fan enters the boss’s office.

19. The mom: leaves early most of the days to pick up her sick kid from preschool, takes a couple of days off in the final exams season.

20. The visitor: going around from one office to another, drinking coffee and sharing news, never at their office and usually a #9.

Where do you work? Do you have these people too?

Men are Horrible at Multitasking. Period.

It's just how they are, some people will say it's a myth, others will say it's what scientific research says and men will argue that it's not that they're no good at multitasking, they just do the job more efficiently when they're focused on one thing.

Whatever.

When you're talking to a man on the phone, you can actually tell that he's doing something else and not paying attention to you at all, he speaks slower, and you have to repeat yourself a thousand times before your three word- sentence sinks in.

Similarly at the office, try asking a colleague for something while he's typing away on his computer, you might, in fact, stand there talking for fifteen minutes before he slowly turns his head towards you and goes "you need what?"… Then what on earth did you mean when you said ok?

I once had the following conversation with a guy at work, let's call him 'Jerk'* he was also working on his computer:

-   Hey we need to do that "task" we talked about.

-   Uh huh.

-   So listen, you take this part, I'll take this one, I'll call 'Flan'* too, but you need to talk to 'Guy'*, then you'll give me your part, I can do it by Wonday* but I need to get them all together, and blah blah blah.

-   Ok.

-   Ok deal, but don't forget to call Guy.

10 minutes of complete silence

Then Jerk goes "aaaaaaaaaaaiih???"

-   Shw aih?

-   Shw kunti te7ki?

-   Mata?

-   Halla2 abl shwai…

-   Sarli 10 da2aye2 sakteh.

-   La2 golti eshi 3n enno a7ki m3 'Guy'

-   ........

But still, men are actually better at other things than girls. You do not ask a girl (or my dad but that's not our subject) for directions, never, no matter how many times she goes to the same place, she'll never describe it the way you want, if you ask a girl where, say a certain restaurant, is located, she will tell you something like "it's near that bakery from which we bought Guy's birthday cake". Try asking a guy where the same restaurant is, what he says will be more like "dallak doghriiiiiiiiiiii, doghri doghri doghriiiiiiii, then go left, then another left, then right… etc", because girls tend to relate things to personal memories or feelings more than guys.

El mohem both sides have certain things that they're good at :)

Finally I'd like to point out that these are not actual facts, they're just my observations.

* For future reference, Jerk is a guy at work, he might come up every now and then.

Flan and Guy are some random people at work, and I'd like to wish Guy a very happy birthday since we mentioned him in the birthday cake example.

Wonday is my imaginary day, all work gets done that day and we leave early :)