Job Discussion Forums

[bje]

[Stephen Jones]

[sheikh radlinrol]

[007]

[sheikh radlinrol]

Sorry 007 but Sheikh Radlinrol is also a Scottish (albeit exiled). Since Scotland is now well on the way to independence we don't need quarrelsome ladies like Her Majesty. Enough of them already.

[bje]

SJ: Perhaps you can tell me what is arrogant to suggest having a restaurant full of waiters who don't speak the same language as any of their customers isn't good for business?


bje: I can't. It is clearly 'a bad business model'. What were they thinking?


The above was intended as irony, SJ. I was alluding to the arrogance of complaining about the linguistic deficits of yet more victims of Saudi owners' unthinking, avaricious plunder of the Gulf slave labour pool.

The perspective which puts 'me' at the centre as 'inconvenienced customer' is popular amongst Western expats. This can tend to ossify into cold-hearted brusqueness/arrogance- call it what you will- for some long-time Gulf residents.

[Stephen Jones]

[cmp45]

[Stephen Jones]

You're not reading the thread. We did take the business elsewhere, as did many other customers. In fact the restaurant later closed down.

Being a minority English speaker was irrelevant; the point was the waiters couldn't speak Arabic either.

I'm not trying to change the business model. Merely pointing out that in Saudi it is still possible, though not usual, to get taxi drivers who don't know the city they work in and can't read maps and signs, and to get waiters and shop assisitants who can only speak some Asian language.

[cmp45]

Well actually I am reading the thread and am pretty certain I got the jist of what your rant is all about.

The thing is anyone who has lived in the Kingdom has experienced in some form or other what you have expressed. I am certain we all have these sorts of stories of taxi drivers that don't know where a place is, or not being able to properly communicate with a variety of people in the service industry or wittnessing it between others or the poor signage on the streets etc.. You know as well as anyone that KSA is what it is. Sorry if some of us aren't jumping on your 'woes me' bandwagon. I may be wrong, but that is the way it comes across to me.

You know you are never going to be able to personally change any of these problems /situations that you seem to be so concerned about and you have no plans to leave KSA. so...
Try changing the things you can, and accept the things you can't and have the wisdom to know the difference between the two...I would recommend changing/ adjusting your "attitude".
Believe me, you will make yourself and the people around you much happier.

[bje]

Quote:
I was alluding to the arrogance of complaining about the linguistic deficits of yet more victims of Saudi owners' unthinking, avaricious plunder of the Gulf slave labour pool.


So to complain about a restaurant which can't organise itself to serve food is arrogant?

'A restaurant' is an abstraction. I was referring to the hapless workers there.

Quote:
The perspective which puts 'me' at the centre as 'inconvenienced customer' is popular amongst Western expats.


Yea. And if you were ripped off by lousy service in your own country you would do the same. It's just that here you can play the role of the saviour of the oppressed and make snide comments about your fellow countrymen.

SJ, I'm differentiating between 'lousy service' back home (where restaurant staff are badly paid, but nothing approximating endemic Gulf slave labour pay and conditions) and the cold 'bad business model' you refer to.

Although I (as someone probably more selfish and egotistical than most) would be a fool to consider myself 'a saviour of the oppressed', I would be behaving downright unethically were I to do extra harm to workers from poor countries. As for 'making snide comments about my fellow countrymen', I suppose you intend that we should 'unite in our Western brotherhood/sisterhood'. Sorry, we're too privileged in the scheme of things for me to contemplate this, and I am unable to muster any sense of 'nationalism'.

[Queen of Sheba]

Exactly, its hard to be nationalist when all the nationals want to do is break the rules, take home the big bucks they cant make back home, then whine and complain about the service, the food, the lousy people who cant even communicate, in any of his or her preferred languages. We are burdened by these people in Saudi and it�s down right annoying, arrogant and pompous of them to expect things to be up to their standards, as they are back home. They drink, drive, dont wear abayas or hijabs or show any semblance of cultural respect, then they whine about the locals and the underprivileged people who also come here to make a better living than they could back home. Or at least try to. In reality, we are not that much better than those Afghanis and Pakistanis, we are just the next expats on the ladder.

I have suggested it before, and I will agree with others have said, you can adjust your attitude, or you can adjust your watch - to British standard time or American standard time, whatever the case may be.

[cassava]

The situation, described by Stephen Jones, where the waiters in a restaurant in Riyadh spoke neither Arabic nor English has obviously annoyed him a great deal. However, this kind of scenario is by no means unique to Riyadh. In many of the small towns in places like Taif and Tabuk, this is exactly what I found. Restaurants, if one can dignify them with that name, were often manned by large numbers of South Asians who had recently arrived in Saudi. They spoke neither Arabic nor English. I frequently observed customers pointing to pictures of different dishes or to items in those dishes that they wanted. Of course, this was not the best nor the most professional way of doing business, but both parties, with a lot of give and take and smiles, seemed to survive. This was the situation some years ago when I lived in that part of the world. I don't know whether it has changed.

I have travelled to all kinds of countries in some of the most remote parts of this world and have had to face many bizarre situations, far worse than that encountered by Jones. I never lost my temper; instead, I always tried to adjust to the unexpected while reminding myself that I was the visitor and that the locals had the right to lead their lives as they saw fit, regardless of how extraordinary or illogical their actions might appear to me.

[Queen of Sheba]

Cassava, cultural relativism, as well as logic and reason seem to escape some of the posters on this forum. Its nice of you to try, however.

[sheikh radlinrol]