Job Discussion Forums

[GulfProf]

I am currently in the third year of a three-year contract in a very comfortable and sometimes rewarding position in Kuwait. I'm at a crossroads right now though and really don't know which route to take. Here's my dilemma:

I like certain aspects of my job very much, especially the students. I am amazingly adaptable and figured out the culture of the institution right away so that I'm able to do my job in the way that they want it done without causing any stir. But even though I cope very well, it's at a high personal price. The sheer amount of energy it takes to navigate through the BS on some days is enormous!

There are some faculty and administrators here who constantly perplex me. I look at them sometimes while they're in the middle of some impassioned speech during a meeting or in the middle of fomenting discontent or trying to bring somebody they perceive as a threat down to their kneews and I wonder how they ever got the job much less how they keep it. There's an acceptance (even fostering!) of mediocrity here that is soul-numbing.

Since the end of my contract is coming up this year I'm in the short window where I could switch jobs should I want to. I've sent out some feelers and I've already been asked to interview at a similar institution in the Emirates. I've applied to a handful of others and believe it's reasonable to expect that I should get another interview or so out of it and maybe even a job offer.

End of history. Now here's my question. Do you think it will be worth it to leave my job in Kuwait (the devil I know) and move on to a similar job in the Emirates? My assumption (hope!!) is that because the standard of living for expats is a bit higher in the Emirates, perhaps the institutions' ability to be selective in their hiring is likewise a little higher?? I would imagine that that horrible lowest 10% that I see in action here in Kuwait might not be there and instead there would be 10% more "normal" people that I could enjoy interacting with?

I've only visited the Emirates either as a tourist or as a participant in a conference so I only know the surface elements. It's certainly a lot cleaner than Kuwait. It has no crumbling run-down houses like you see everywhere in Kuwait and I didn't see any empty lots used as ad hoc garbage dumps. Of course one notices right away that there are bars selling real liquor. After almost three years of socializing in the same houses with the same people drinking the same home-brew wine, I want to scream.

OK, I think everyone gets the idea here. I am truly interested in what longer-term Gulf teachers have to say about my dilemma.

[omanized]

Go for it...it won't be any worse from what it sounds like and likely to be better, even a lot better for work and certainly life.

[ghost]

Life is short.

Take a risk and change posts. Three years in the same job is more than enough.

In Korea, foreign lecturers cannot renew contracts after 3 years, and for good reason. The job becomes too cushy after that and teachers tend to use the same notes and don't push the students.

Have you considered Saudi and Oman? There are jobs in those countries and some of the benefits would be better than what you might get in the Emirates.

Do you have an M.A.? Are you trained in TESL and/or linguistics? If that is the case, you may want to take a plane to Seoul and take over my job when I leave in April, 2008. Check www.gifle.go.kr for details about the jobs in my neck of the woods.

Ghost in Korea

[veiledsentiments]

I expect that this poster doesn't want to give away too much personal information since she is applying around.

There is much to be said for 'better the devil you know.'

But... as long as one knows that the new employer is at least as credible as the last... in other words, you are not jumping from the frying pan into the fire... (how many platitudes can I get in here)... I think that a move is a good choice. You will find many of the same problems with management and eccentric mediocrity, as that is the rule in Gulf education from what I saw.

So you will get rid of the current boredom with life outside work. That is not to say that in a year or two or three you won't be just as bored with what your city in the Emirates or wherever has to offer. It is always going to be a matter of seeing someone you know everywhere you go. I suspect that this is the reason why the majority of us single people do a contract or two and move on.

IMHO, you can't go anywhere but up leaving Kuwait. But, I have never hidden my lack of affection for the place.

VS

[GulfProf]

I think you're right, VS, when you say that sometimes the move itself is simply needed at a certain time. I was thinking today as I was watching the dynamics of some of the strangest people in a meeting that this kind of thing is going to follow me wherever I go. A lot of this went on in institutions in the States as well! Maybe it's just time for me to move on to a different group of strange people, shake things up a little.

I've learned a lot during these last two and a half years in Kuwait and I'm a bit sadder and a lot wiser. I think at the new institution I'll be better suited to the situation right from the get go. I won't be seduced by the office gossips like I was before and I'll know better not to get sucked into power struggles. I think my first year will be a lot smoother because of it.

I'm basing a lot of the decision on my reading of these discussion boards. It seems that it's fairly unanimous that life outside of work is much better in the Emirates than in Kuwait. There is so little going on in Kuwait and so few opportunities to meet people outside of work that work becomes the center of your life. Then when strange politics happen at work, it looms much larger than it would elsewhere.

[eha]

"I would imagine that that horrible lowest 10% that I see in action here in Kuwait might not be there and instead there would be 10% more "normal" people that I could enjoy interacting with? "

Only 10% in Kuwait? Think I'll apply! Most other places I've been in the region, it's more like 50%, with 45% keeping their heads down, making like the 'wise' monkeys, in order to keep --- what? their jobs? their noses clean? their asses covered? certainly not their integrity or their professional loyalty to colleagues--- always supposing they were ever the kind of people who had such admirable qualities.
But it's true that some societies offer a bit more variety than others--- if what happens at work (you seem to be one of the people who can bear a bit of reality) doesn't destroy your normal desire for the company of humankind. It's actually very hard to see someone at, say, a carol-singing session, whom you know to have been responsible -- through gossip, let's say, or stupidity-- for the professional demise of worthwhile ex-colleagues, and retain much of the milk of human kindness. Or to join in jolly get-togethers in Trader Vics, once you know they are for the exclusive ego-boosting of some in-crowd or other, and that many of those present will freeze you out if you try to discuss the kind of realities you've referred to above.
Anyway, what the hell. Same old, same old. You might be lucky--- but I'd keep yr mouth shut about -- ahem! --- unethical, unprofessional, anti-social behaviour at work, if I were you. It's amazing how such stuff gets back, in mangled form, to your 'superiors'--- even those of them who don't go in for singing carols, or who don't frequent pubs. And of course, scapegoating the whistle-blower, blaming the victim is one of the ways in which people like this crawl up the corporate ladder.

[GulfProf]

Eha, when I said "the bottom 10%" I meant those people who are so totally and completely screwed up that they display no redeemable characteristics--bad teachers, bad colleagues, bad scholars. Kuwait seems to draw the people who can't get hired or, if hired, keep jobs anywhere else. I'm hoping that this bottom-of-the-barrel element will not be there in institutions in countries that can afford to be more discriminating. This is what I'm trying to get feedback on from you all who have more experience than I in this region! This is only my third year and I've only taught in Kuwait. Are these complete losers in the Emrirates and Qatar as well???

Those other 50% you talked about? I am old enough and wise enough to expect to meet them wherever I go! And yes, you are absolutely right about the best way to deal with them. I've learned soooooo much in my three years in Kuwait and one of the things I've learned is to never say anything to anyone individually that I wouldn't say in front of everyone in a meeting. If you get a reputation as someone who doesn't dish, no one tries to enroll you in their schemes and everyone respects you.

[eha]

" Are these complete losers in the Emrirates and Qatar as well???"

Yes. And the damage they do is completely disproportionate to their numbers. In the tiny world of tefling (probably modeled on the minds of the practitioners) you can find yourself, years later, fighting off the harm some dysfunctional fool has done you in another setting long ago. And losing, because you get the same --ok, let's be polite and call them 'losers'--- everywhere. But who loses? The few good guys--- in my experience.

" If you get a reputation as someone who doesn't dish, no one tries to enroll you in their schemes and everyone respects you."

Not my experience. After a while, sure, they'll stop trying to enroll you. But respect you? No, respect isn't on their agenda. They'll marginalise you, exclude you, trash you to gullible locals who fall for appearances, or to wily admin bureaucrats who couldn't care less what the reality is. Either way, there's no-one backing the good guys. The 50% keeping their heads down and calling their cowardice discretion? Forget them. They're the kind you wouldn't want to be fighting in the next trench to.

That's my experience. Don't let it put you off. As I said, some people get lucky. But it's just luck: it's not because one set-up is better than the others.

[bje]

[GulfProf]

Am I to believe that you think that 100% of the people with whom you work are either losers or suck-ups? That's a sad state of affairs! And you found it better in Kuwait than in the Emirates? I guess I've got my answer.

[bje]

[eha]

" I have never experienced particular problems with colleagues either here or in Kuwait. However, [...] I have certainly 'observed' worse behaviour here than in Kuwait. '

All credit where it's due. Most of those who don't find themselves targetted don't usually care to observe what's happening to a struggling colleague. You must belong to my 5%, bje. Believe me, it's a VERY exclusive group!

[bje]

[veiledsentiments]

It seems to me that one of the biggest problems with the system in the Gulf is that even when the worst of these... is losers the term we are using here... OK losers is that when they are finally "not renewed" they are sent off with a glowing recommendation letter from the very person who fired them. Thus just cycling them around.

The only things that I have seen people get blackballed for was religious proselytizing or getting involved with a female student. That is about all that seems to get onto the "security check" that they do on us. Oh... and one person wrote a book about teaching in the Gulf that got her on the list.

In the US, you can end up in court if you write a bad report on a fired employee, so employers are scared to write them, but in the Gulf, there is no possible punishment for an employer who answers honestly about an ex-employee. So, I have always wondered why they didn't just say... X showed up drunk 3 times a week... if he showed up at all.

VS

[eha]

My point was--- one of them--- that it often ISN"T the losers who are forced out of jobs, but the best people (not always fired; just so harassed and abused that they have no choice but to leave-- the 'fell' or 'pushed' syndrome). And THEY'RE often the ones that get on a blacklist--- because of what the losers did to them! And no-one is ever interested in finding out what really happened. That's the basis of so much of the disillusionment you encounter in the attitudes of some of the best people. The ones I regard as the REAL losers never seem to get fired; how could they? They've got the whole game sorted--- THEY"RE the ones doing the firing, or arranging it!

Before you point this out---- it's not just in the Gulf: read the Times Educational Supplement Staffroom forum. The mainstream educational system in England is such a shambes now that the best people are being forced out, and the ambitious corporate time-servers are taking over-- if they haven't already. And the bloody clueless politicians are facilitating the breakdown of civilization! Sounds familiar, huh.