Job Hunting

I am one of those fortunate people who didn’t have to struggle hard to secure a job. I didn’t experience going from one office to the next, dropping off my CV, and I didn’t experience being turned down after an interview either.

Masood’s experience, however, has been different. He landed in Dubai for the first time five years ago, on a visit visa which was valid for only sixty days. He would leave his apartment early in the morning after reading the classified section, took the public bus or walked in the scorching heat of the desert, visited office after office, and on the 58th day, even got frustrated. Not that he wasn’t getting any offers at all. The ones he was getting at that time was either not directly related to his profession or the pay was just too low.

It was on the 59th day, just a day before his visit visa was supposed to expire and when he was supposed to board his flight back home to India, that Masood finally received the call he was waiting for. He got accepted for the job! And, he has been working in the same company since then.

I am narrating this because last Thursday, a man walked into our office. He approached Masood (who happens to be our HR guy besides being our full time network engineer) and asked whether we had an opening for an Oracle-related job. We didn’t have any, so Masood asked him to leave his CV and said the usual stuff HR people say,”I’ll keep your CV, and when there’s an opening, I’ll call and let you know.”

Curious, I read this guy’s CV. He is 46 years old, single, and with 8 years of experience in Oracle – working in India, Singapore, Qatar, Bahrain, and even the USA. But here he was, currently unemployed and looking for a job, walking in office after office.

Later that day while we were walking back to the office from the Mosque, I noticed someone else’s CV lying down on the floor, just outside an office door. I asked Masood, “Do these CVs actually make it inside the office?” He said that they usually don’t. I felt sad for that person.

For those of us who are employed, we should be grateful for this blessing instead of voicing out our discontentment and work-related frustrations at every given opportunity, specially during office hours.

Ramadan At Work

I started working a week before Ramadan. As much as possible, depending on work load and other office-related circumstances, Masood and I try to pray together. The mosque is small; it’s an office space actually. There’s a small space at the corner near the door, separated off from the rest of the room by a wooden divider, where women can pray in private. But there is only one entrance to the mosque, so I can basically see how many men are in the mosque.

Usually, there would be around 10 or 15 men during Maghrib, that’s when everyone comes down to the mosque to pray at the same time. Otherwise, there would be just 5 or 8 men praying. In the ladies section, there would only be two of us.

However, since Ramadan started, I noticed a few things:

• There is a sudden increase in the number of men and women praying: the mosque gets full now! Where were all these Muslims brothers and sisters before Ramadan?

• It is now common to see people sitting in the corner reading the Qur’an. This wasn’t happening at all last week.

• Women bring in their footwear inside the praying area. I mean, who’s going to steal them! All the people coming in to pray are professionals working in the same building.

• After As’r prayers, I find some men sleeping in the mosque. That’s okay, I guess. But when I start to pray, that’s when the snoring competition begins, and it is really a distraction.

• The restaurants on the ground floor have curtains on them, so that the food is not openly displayed, and you can still go in and eat if you’re not fasting.

• There is a tent put up for smokers. It is prohibited to smoke in public during Ramadan, so if you can’t resist the urge to smoke, do it inside the tent.

• We get to work only 6 hours! Others, like my brother-in-law for instance, work for only 5 hours each day.

• The traffic is horrible after As’r prayers, with everyone rushing to be home to break the fast. Drivers are irritable and impatient.

Nevertheless, I am grateful that I am spending Ramadan in a Muslim country with my family, and having to work less hours, Alhumdulillah.

How’s your Ramadan coming along so far?