Although i am supposdly a graduate, I’m doing my final course along with my internship this summer, & i must admit, it’s the laziest state i’ve ever reached in my academic life! there’s this thing about me that’s pretty annoying actually. When I hate something/someone/somewhere, then it’s over, don’t even try to change my mind.

I’m currently doing my internship in a BANK, some might think it’s AWESOME, & the more sane people would agree with me that it’s the last place they’d want to spend 7 weeks of their lives at. I tried to be optimistic about it, i really did, but i just know this place is in no way fit for me.
Being 1 of the very few Arabs, Emiratis or even females at that department, means that i spend almosy 7.5 of the 8 hours on MUTE. And being on that mode means i spend my time observing people around me.

I remember the first day i walked in, the secretary pointed at the staff and whispered to me: “You see all these people? they’re all busy acting busy!”. This must’ve been the most truthful statement i heard since day one at the bank, because from the first minute, i noticed how every employee is glued to his/her seat, staring carefully at their monitors that have been on the “Screen Saver” mode since God knows when! I’m talking about 80+ monitors playing the same screen savers here :P!

Out of the 80 or so employees, only  7 are Emiratis, 2 Eygptians, 1 Jordanian & 2 Philipinos. So that amounts to 12? Well the rest of them are all either Indians or Pakistanis, so all day long, all I hear is Urdu and Hindi spoken, which means i have no idea whats going on around me.

Don’t get me wrong, i have no problem with Indians & Pakistanis, on the contrary, i have good friends from these nationalities, but the ones at that bank have some things in common:

1) if you’re a UAE nationl, they won’t speak to you, because you MUST be after their jobs
2) if you’re not after their job in particular, then you’ll surely become their boss
3) if they will eventually speak to you, they will be VERY careful to not teach you anything worthwhile, because you see they can’t live to see you become their boss!
4) they will not stare away from their monitors even if you point a gun at them, they must appear as workaholics, they just must
5) if the job requires a day, they’ll spread it across a week or so, because you see, they can’t stare at the screen all their lives, now can they?

i have worked with different nationalities before but never really felt this type of behavior much towards me as an Emirati, but theres something wrong with this place!

and the funny thing is when they go on asking my supervisor : Who is she? Why is she here? is she here to stay? I can’t believe an intern in Abaya can make them suffocate like that. I told my advisor to tell them that I am the new boss, & that they’re just in the process of arranging me new office! i couldn’t help not saying that, because you see I’ve been treated like a queen ever since then! haha

Ok it’s not really funny, i don’t like being a threat to anybody, but i guess some people should get over the idea of us Emiratis being after anything they have, because at the end of the day, if you think of it, you’re entitled for a job in your own country aren’t you?

There are things i noticed about people of my nationality at workplaces, you may not agree, but it’s only my personal observation.
1) they don’t have the “I won’t teach you” mentality.
2) they’re not wicked by nature
3) they’re talkative
4) they can be pretty naive and end up resigning without even claiming their rights

at the mid of all this,  i must say, 2 things really chear me up :

1) escaping early
2) hearing my Philipino cubicle neighbor answer phone calls so soo politely! God it makes my day!  after hearing Urdu spoken all day long, you have no idea how the English Philipino accent becomes so dear! and no i am not kidding! it brings happy tears to my eyes!

God give me patience to wake up at 6:00 am for the remaining weeks, because i am failing misrably >_<’