Job Discussion Forums

[Mr Gavoni]

I have been in Oman for two years and a half. My experience began at the University of Nizwa, in 2009. I came with minimal yet significant experience of the Gulf (8 months in Saudi) and its employers; from the first day at the airport I thought that Oman was much friendlier and so far I haven�t been too disappointed, though the following story may mean to suggest differently.

As soon as I set foot in Nizwa, I was fascinated by it. It is a nice quaint city, one of the best in Oman, if only because of the souq area. The University struck me as a particularly friendly environment too, at first. The Language Center (now called Foundation Institute) was directed by a Tunisian fellow, who apparently liked to keep a low profile, and practically managed by a Canadian woman for all the teaching matters (as DOS), an Egyptian guy for the TOEFL examinations and two �tough� Omani girls (N&N) for all the administrative stuff. For the first months of my stay, everything ran quite smoothly.

Unfortunately, after my first, scorching Omani summer (2009), a change occurred.

The process of �Omanization�, heralded by HM the Mighty Sultan, whereby more and more of the workforce should be Omani, has not succeeded in sending back home all the Indians that clean houses, streets, and cars for half a Riyal, to replace them with enthusiastic indigenous blue collars (or shall I say blue kumas?), but it is definitely succeeding in placing as many Omanis as possible in managerial positions, regardless of their background and/or competence. So it happened that a wealthy, semi-retired Omani man, who had a long history of disastrous management in other institutions of higher education but was lucky enough to be close friends with one of the main shareholders of the University (= had �wasta�, the only certain law of this country), was called to replace the Tunisian director. That was the beginning of the end.

I have never gone by hearsay when it comes to judging a new director (also because I believe in what The Who used to sing: meet the new boss, same as the old boss). However, I did grow somewhat suspicious when the newly appointed director sent his first email out to all the staff asking several odd questions � one of which was: �how do you want me to manage the center?� BAD question, bub, I thought instantly. I ignored it and just advised him to get the gravel around the building paved, which he did immediately; so I thought, why, he ain�t that bad after all. And as a matter of fact, the first months went by with nothing in particular to note; only the new DOS, an Australian man, seemed to be increasingly flustered with the way things were (not) handled by the new boss. I couldn�t really be bothered, as far as I had nothing else to do but teach; besides, a serious accident towards the end of the year kept me in hospital for two months.

When I came back, I noticed some growing dissatisfaction among my colleagues, especially the Aussie DOS (who had become a close friend of mine), who had resigned from his post and been substituted with another Omani, younger than the director and from his same village� This new full-fledged DOS did initially fairly well at keeping up with his tasks, which included putting up with some ever-moaning teachers. The end of the honeymoon (for want of a better word) was nigh, though.

It finally came towards the end of the academic year, on the occasion of a dreadful staff meeting, when the staff showed a great deal of dissatisfaction and grief to the director. It is not my position here to tell how much reason there was for such feelings (again, I could only report from hearsay), but I can definitely say that their venting was handled in a ghastly way by the director. One significant incident was when one of the teachers, an American woman, said to the director that he had promised many things, but done none; whereat the director angrily replied �well, what have YOU been doing for the language center?!?� BAD retort, I instantly thought, instinctively shaking my head; the whole rest of the staff grumbled their disapproval in unison. The meeting quickly became all but farcical. At one point, the ex-DOS stormed out in indignation, slamming the door behind him; eventually the new Omani DOS realized that the situation was dramatic and thought it a wise idea to call it a day. Everyone walked out snorting and sniggering: �what a travesty� and �what a clown� were the most recurrent comments, along with �I need a joint�.

After a much needed summer holiday, the next year started � we are in 2010 � with quite a few changes. The Omani DOS was not alone anymore; a newly employed English woman was in charge of the teaching management (in actual fact, she was the new DOS), and three new level coordinators had been appointed (one for each level). During one of the first meetings, the new DOS happened to be bragging about the benefits of the New System, and I remember saying to her: as long as it won�t happen again what used to happen in the past, when some students who were failed with marks as low as 25% (the official threshold is 70%) were eventually passed. I remember how she categorically shook her head: it is not going to happen with ME. Noted, I thought; now let�s see. Eventually, for the record, all the students somehow passed � but this is another story.

The beginning of the new semester was marked by a major change: the old two-shift system, which allowed everyone to teach either in the morning or in the afternoon only and always in the same classroom, had been cracked and the teaching hours were much less friendly. However, we all got on with it, the new coordinators being considerate enough to the old-timers.

The second semester started in February; three new coordinators were needed. I thought I�d give it a go and I applied for the position. I first talked to the previous Omani DOS, who had been elevated to a position which I later labeled �executive manager of encouraging emails� (for the rest, he would do both: jack AND shit), but he showed reluctance and ill-concealed hostility towards my candidacy. I insisted with the director in person and eventually I got it � I suspect now, only because there were no other readily available options.

However, they told me that unlike all the other coordinators I would be in charge of teaching 17 hours instead of 10. Still, I accepted the position and kept myself busy with classes, level meetings, materials, and all the tasks implied by the job. There were many, also because a new problem had reared her head�

N&N, the two Omani sisters who used to take on all the donkey work with well-honed expertise, belonged to a pesky happy past and they were not liked much by the director. He therefore appointed a friend of his family�s, an inexperienced girl (hereinafter, W), to take care of the teaching schedules & classroom allocations. She did it on the computer using only an abstruse, unknown program, processing data at jolly random.

The result was hair-raising.

The typical teaching schedule had become something like: 8-9 in this classroom; 12-14 in this other classroom; 16-18 in a third different classroom � on the first day. The second day, different times and different classrooms, to the point where some teachers had to teach the same students in eight or nine different classrooms over the week (yours truly was one of them) at totally erratic times. In addition to this, some teachers had as many as 28 students and were allocated in mini-classrooms that could take in only 15 individuals (in a pinch); other teachers, conversely, could enjoy huge halls with just a handful of happy bunnies. The general level of frustration had skyrocketed, and yet both the director and especially the Email Executive turned a defiant, �deaf eye� to it. The teachers of the level I coordinated were quite complaisant professionals, but a few did come to me for help. I tried to provide it and I made The Mistake: I went to W.

I offered to take some of my time, unpaid, and help her fix a situation which I referred to as "dramatic" and of course I was always polite � or tried my best to be. Still, a more experienced friend of mine, upon hearing my story and its ending, chuckled, gave me a pat on the shoulder and said: been there, done that, bought the dishdasha! He told me his story, similar to mine, the moral being: you CAN�T go to an Omani and even remotely imply that they didn�t do their job properly, because they will smile affably (which W did), conclude the meeting amicably (which W did), and report to the director immediately to bitch about you (which is exactly what this W-girl did).

I was summoned into the director�s office the same day. The Email Encourager and W herself were there with him. Nobody wanted to listen to a word of what I had to say; the director stubbornly defended the girl�s work, told me that my �image at the institute� was �not good�, and dismissed me. One week later, another teacher was offered my position (unbeknownst to me) and soon afterwards I received an email from the director informing me that I had been demoted.

BAD move, I thought, and now that�s enough. I had been distinctly insulted; in fact, by the very standards of the Omani society that reference to my �image� was a scathing affront. Another blow came a few weeks later, when one of the new coordinators � the director�s new pet � started sharpshooting me, reporting me first for not having posted my teaching hours on the office door (???), then for being four minutes late for one of my classes. That�s when I decided to apply for another position somewhere else (which I did, and I obtained it).

In the meantime, the situation at the Uni became bleaker and bleaker. Many teachers � almost all the old guard � got laid off. Truth be told, I think that some did deserve to be let go; but many were actually pretty good teflers, very competent and highly respected by all the students. Their only fault was complaining every now and then about issues that would be considered hallmarks of diabolical management in many countries. The most adventurous attempted an ill-fated court case, on the grounds of unfair dismissal. Others, like me, simply resigned and moved on to better institutions.

The Omanis are a respectful and pleasing people � I have liked them since day one. They can be charmingly courteous and extremely hospitable, and they will go to great lengths to help you, as long as you show just as much courtesy and respect to them. This example of Omani director � the sully-man, as I nicknamed him, for the way he tarnished the reputation of a whole institution � is a really unfortunate one. He happened to find himself in a position where he must deal with potentially critical Westerners and he is out of his depth, out of touch, and extremely childish. As I said, this is (reportedly) not the first time he�s managed to wreck a whole department; the higher echelons of the University have now started to realize the mess this guy alone has generated � suffice it to say that many prospective students are now favoring Buraimi. This is also why the sully-man has been recently stripped of some prerogatives (he no longer has the last word in the hiring process, for one). Even some Omanis at the University consider him a �sick� person; the word is, soon he will be replaced. But this will take time: traditionally, Omanis never get fired or demoted, they simply get shifted to other positions with fewer or no responsibilities, and eventually they are gently encouraged to leave for a �better� place where they can display their indubitable capabilities more comfortably (i.e., where they can *beep* up without causing too much damage).

At any rate, whoever lands in Oman (or any other Gulf country, for that) must be aware of this general fact: these people are not at all used to taking criticism of any kind, and they react to it in a way that we�ll consider extremely immature.

Somewhere here, I think, someone said: if they want to mess up their own country, let them do it, after all it�s their country. Incidentally, there are many practical things which I would change about Oman (to name one, I would proscribe the construction of any building without a prior, working road network around it � and whoever�s been in Nizwa for longer than a week knows what I�m talking about); but again, if they want to sit back and cheerfully watch the petroleum flow out and the dollars flow in whilst they chummily relish their wasta� let�em do it. No point telling them that if they keep up this wastafarian attitude, in a decade or two (when the oil funfair is over) they will probably have to resort to camel-riding again. Some of them � "god bless their hearts" � might even wind up leaving for more industrious countries, such as India, to wash the local bourgeois� cars for half a Riyal.

[Sleepwalker]

Mr Gavoni

Sounds as if went through the mill. Is your new position better?

[Space Teacher]

[Sleepwalker]

I did the timetables in one of my previous organisations. I heard about this wonderful program endlessly from Omani staff and a colleague gave me a copy. Dear me, it took so long to plug in the data and it couldn't cope with things like classroom size etc.

The end result was a pile of spaghetti so I put the two versions of the timetables out for a vote. I never heard this program mentioned again.

Duffy - are you around for a comment on present day UoN?

[urbanversion]

[Mr Gavoni]

[Sleepwalker]

urbanversion - I won't be able to eat today....

[isabel]

It is a sad situation there. I really hope to hear that this year is starting better.

[Mr Gavoni]

[isabel]

I'm outa here.

[urbanversion]

At least with that aussie DOS wysiwyg.

I prefer that brutal directness to the underhand way you will be forced out by an Omani HOC/HOS who will listen to the students always, but never your side. Then you will see the so called 'AA' rear it's ugly head.

swings and roundabouts?

[isabel]

Bye

[urbanversion]

[veiledsentiments]

I've found that both honesty and dishonesty exist in all nationalities. The problems tend to come between different nationalities which have different cultural rules...

VS

[isabel]

Yes- thanks for clarifying that. I agree. I find it offensive to accuse Omanis of being dishonest as a whole.

As I said before, I only hope that things get better at U.Nizwa.

I also wish urbanversion the best- if I remember right, or have reckoned rightly who he is, he got a real bad shake there.