From today’s Gulf Times
When I was new to Qatar, and thrilled to find my hometown Starbucks going great guns here, I asked “Where is the tip jar?”
Every Starbucks has a tip jar. Everywhere. Baristas don’t get paid that much; you always tip. Often they are young people stretching to pay the rent while they go to school, or trying to raise a child as a single parent. A tip is a way to allow God to redistribute income in the world; you let it go freely and He sends it where it should go.
The barista reached down and pulled out a jar, but did not look encouraging.
“Why is it down there?” I asked, naively.
“We don’t get these monies,” the barista said. “The Management takes everything.”
So I started asking at every Starbucks, and the answer was always the same. The workers don’t get the tips. Management takes everything.
Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for rich people to get into heaven. When I hear stories about the workers not getting the tips, or workers being exploited, being treated as a resource or commodity rather than as partners in operations, I fear for the people who would take these monies out of their own greed. I fear for them in the afterlife. If we are not open handed, using our wealth to help others, maybe it will be our burden in the next life, and we will regret having to carry it around. Maybe it will be a barrier, and we can just peek over to see the life of the spirit we might have had. I fear for people who cannot overcome their greed, and share the wealth.
‘Hidden charges’ at restaurants slammed
By Sarmad Qazi
Irked by having to pay what they call “hidden charges”, some customers have expressed their displeasure at the increasing practice in restaurants of adding “service charges” to their final tab.
Patrons say they do not mind paying the extra so long as any additional charge is written visibly on the menus and the money actually goes to who it is originally charged for – the staff.
“The fact that my bill had a 10% service charge came as a surprise. The font size used on the menu to announce the charge was smaller than a bank’s fine print,” a customer of a fine dining restaurant said.
Debate on the subject is raging across the region. Just last week, the UAE outlawed the practice and warned restaurants and cafés to do away with the practice by February 1 or face fines ranging between Dh5,000 to Dh100,000. Exempted from the rule are restaurants located in hotels.
Service charge, often added to the final bill at dine-in and table-service restaurants (not applies on take-outs, home delivery), usually ranges from 5% to 20% depending upon the quality of the outlet. The practice is allowed at restaurants inside hotels but has caught up outside too.
Restaurants, however, yesterday defended the service charge and maintained the money went towards staff waiting tables and inside the kitchen.
“Various establishments use it for different purposes. We use it as a motivational factor for our staff,” said a senior official at a food and beverage company which manages some of the leading franchised restaurants in Qatar.
But customers also accused restaurants of pocketing the extra money rather than giving 100% to employees.
“If all of the service charge is not passed down to staff then restaurant use the money to cover breakages (glass, cutlery etc) by employees rather than managements increasing the cost of products (on the menu),” a general manager of an American franchised chain of restaurant said.
The practice is not restricted to branded restaurants only as some local fine dining restaurants in Qatar also take service charges. Most officials Gulf Times spoke to were not sure whether a prior Baladiya or Ministry of Business & Trade permission was taken before the charge was introduced.
Industry officials also dismissed suggestions that instead of a separate service charge they should increase the price of products as “impossible”.
“This can’t be done. Increase in prices will make the customer move to a competitor,” a restaurant official said.
“We do however waive the service charge if a customer insists or if they do not feel like they received the level of service they expected,” he added.
January 6, 2010
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Bureaucracy, Character, Charity, Community, Customer Service, Doha, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Financial Issues, Interconnected, Lies, Living Conditions, Values, Work Related Issues |
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Community policing is necessary when we neglect to police ourselves. . . if, for example, we find ourselves throwing a tissue out of our car window as we drive along, littering the pristine streets of Doha. If we bully someone because we want that parking spot he is driving into, if we disrupt the peace and quality of life of others by our behavior.
I notice, in this story from the Gulf Times, that women are a part of this program, and that they are wearing uniforms, and hijab, and that those uniforms are very modest and also that they are wearing pants. Please see the previous article.
I commend Qatar for this visionary program, helping the community police itself, and for including women from the very first class.
46 take part in community policing basic course
Graduates with officials at the convocation ceremony
The Police Training Institute (PTI) recently held a ceremony to mark the graduation of participants in the first batch of the Community Policing Basic Course, under the auspices of Minister of State for Interior Affairs HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani.
Some 46 students from various security departments took part in the course, which lasted seven weeks, said a spokesperson.
The ceremony was attended by the chairman on the Central Municipal Council, HE Nasser al-Kaabi; director of the PTI, Brigadier Mohamed Hassan Youssef al-Saei as well as other ministry officials.
Brigadier al-Saei explained that the course has been conducted to “enhance the role and mechanisms of community policing,” as well as helping to create partnerships with various social institutions to help with national security.
The PTI director added that the graduates of this course will be able to translate the Ministry of Interior’s aims and strategies to encourage understanding between various communities and to help the police to be able to prevent crimes before they are committed.
Brigadier Rashid Shaheen al-Atheeque, chairman of the steering committee of community policing, said: “The graduation of the first course of community policing is one of the stages of qualifying the national cadres at the Ministry of Interior to work in the national project.”
“Qatar is currently witnessing progress in all aspects of development in economic and social fields – this increases the role of all sectors in the country to face all kinds of challenges brought with this development,” he said, adding: “These factors require the improvement of capabilities to keep pace with development.”
Brigadier al-Atheeq explained that the ministry had pursued the initiative of community policing to help reduce crime throughout all institutions, and said that they had pursued the objective with the co-operation of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs as well as other ministries and companies, working towards the National Vision 2030.
He explained that the concept will initially be employed in the North Security Department from April 2010, with plans to apply it across the board from 2011.
Representing the director of the Ummul Qura Independent School for Boys, teacher Areezah al-Yami described the noticeable benefits of introducing the community policing programme in the school over the past year.
January 4, 2010
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I almost missed this article, and I am glad I didn’t. This is what I love about reading newspapers in the Gulf, you find information in the most unexpected places.
So you are led to believe that the article is about an increase of injuries in the workplace. What it also contains is some fascinating information I’ve been wondering about – traffic injuries.
I have this unsubstantiated theory that the people who suffer the majority of traffic accidents would be the people who drive more recklessly, and have weaker driving skills – perhaps failing to signal? Perhaps failing to check their rear view mirrors before passing? Perhaps driving too fast for road conditions? I know, I know, go figure, I think the roads are a place for grown-ups, people who understand that by sharing the road peaceably, we all get where we want to go.
The nationality with the largest percentage of injuries are Qatteri @ 21%
The nationality of almost all of the work environment injuries are – no kidding – expatriate.
Almost 100% of the Qattari injuries are driving related. Driving related injuries account for 32% of the total injuries treated, road related + work related.
The second largest nationality with injuries is the Nepalese – 16% of the injuries. Almost all of their injuries, along with Indians – 14%, Egyptians – 7% and Pakistanis – 5% – are work related. 32% of those injuries are from falling from a height. The work related injuries, according to Dr. Raghad, are in proportion to the nationality proportion of the population.
So the question I ask is – If the nationality with the greatest percentage of injuries, 21%, also falls into one of the two highest catagories – road injuries – 32% of all injuries, and if these injuries are totally preventable – wouldn’t it make sense to enforce the existing traffic laws?
I don’t see a lot of Qatteri women driving, so I would hazard a guess that most of these injuries are young men. With Qatteri men already a minority of the population in Qatar, doesn’t it make sense to protect that priceless national resource with increased driving education, supervision, and strict traffic law enforcement?
More than 50pc of all injuries work-related
Web posted at: 12/29/2009 1:25:26
Source ::: The Peninsula
Dr Ahmad Al Shatti, Director of Occupational Health Department at Ministry of Health, Kuwait, gives a workshop at Supreme Council of Health yesterday.Shaival Dalal
DOHA: More than 50 percent of all injuries in Qatar are caused by work-related accidents. The most common among such incidents is falling from a height that causes 32 percent of the injuries, which is equal to the number of injuries caused by traffic accidents.
This was disclosed by officials of the Hamad Trauma Center at the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) at a workshop on occupational health held at the Supreme Council of Health (SCH) premises yesterday.
Road accidents and fall together cause 64 percent of the injuries- 32 percent each. The third largest victims are pedestrians- 11 percent. Six percent of the injuries are caused by a falling object that mostly hit people on a work site and equal number of cases are attributed to burns. Three per cent of the injuries are caused by accidents involving All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs).
Expatriate workers remain to be the biggest sufferers from injuries. However, nationality wise, the highest number of cases are reported among Qataris- 21 percent- most of whom were victims of road accidents.
Nepalese stood second, with 16 per cent of the injuries, followed by Indians- 14 per cent. The other two most affected nationalities are Egyptians (7 percent) and Pakistanis (five percent).
“Work- related accidents and injuries are the highest among Nepalese, because they are the single largest nationality being employed in the construction sector. Other nationalities are also affected proportionate to their numbers in the industry,” Dr Raghad, Injury Prevention Director at the Hamad Trauma Center told The Peninsula on the sidelines of the workshop.
The workshop attended by representatives from the Labour Department, HMC, Qatar Petroleum, RasGas, Ministry of Environment, Medical Commission, Qatar Airways, among other organisations discussed ways to improve the occupational health services in Qatar.
THE PENINSULA
Lest you think I have a think against male Qatteri drivers, I don’t. The older Qatteri male drivers are very gallant, very gentlemanly, on the roads. They have manners, and graciousness. From time to time, I also run across well mannered young Qatteri drivers. They use their turn signals. They wear seat belts. The allow other people to zipper-in. It breaks my heart, in Qatar, in Kuwait, that so many of their young men lose their lives on the roads, or suffer horrible injuries, injuries which take months, even years, from which to recover. What a tragic waste.
December 29, 2009
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As a reply to one of the comments on an earlier post about the Qatar National Day Fireworks Program, the crew that planned, organized and executed the fireworks display commented:
21 crew, 8 x 40 foot shipping containers of equipment, 2 weeks setup, 3 days of bloody rain, 17 pontoons over 3.2km, 1 island with 25 firing positions, kilometers of cable, countless hours of programming, 18 minutes of show, 4 days to pack it all back up and then fly home…great show, but exhausting! Very glad you enjoyed it!
Imagine! Imagine the work that goes into those 18 minutes. . . .
And I bet they are off soon to do New Year’s in some other fabulous location. Imagine, what a life that must be!
December 27, 2009
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First, you have to understand how quietly AdventureMan and I live. He works long hard hours. He gets home, we eat dinner. Most nights we watch some TV together, usually some season of a program we enjoy.
But after dinner last night, we decided to take a walk, instead. While our family in the states is braving out a variety of winter storms, the weather here has become – WONDERFUL! There is a hint of freshness in the morning and evening, and while days are warm, they are comfortable. We walked our compound, enjoying ourselves thoroughly, looking at all the Christmas decorations, and Eid decorations still up. It was a great walk.
Once we came home, we settled in – or so we thought. We were about 15 minutes into the newest season of Lost when our doorbell rang, and a group arrived to give us a very special caroling session. It was so much fun – and thank goodness, I had some cookies on hand to share with the people who came caroling! It was a delightful and moving evening.
We settled down once again, and once again the doorbell rang, neighbors coming to tell us some very good news, a miracle, really, something we had all prayed for, and that they were going home briefly, and would see us in a week or so. We had a wonderful visit with them, were able to send them off with joy.
We looked at each other and grinned. All this was so totally out of the ordinary for our usual week-day nights, but wonderfully out of the ordinary. We like it when things get shaken up a little bit. 🙂
December 23, 2009
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This is not a phenomenon unique to Qatar. I remember reading almost the same exact story about black women in America, where black women get educated and black men go to jail. For the guys, being smart in school is a source of ridicule, rather than admiration.
There are similar stories coming out of many countries in the world.
So how do we encourage young men to strive for higher education?
There was a related story in the Peninsula Men, Not Religion, Block Saudi Women on Friday.
Fewer women getting married: Expert
Web posted at: 12/19/2009 2:32:58
Source ::: THE PENINSULA/ By ABDULLAH ABDUL RAHMAN
DOHA: Latest studies suggest that some 30 percent of young Qatari women remain unmarried and divorce in the local community is on an alarming rise, says a prominent Qatari psychologist.
The number of unmarried women is increasing basically due to the fact that more and more females want to pursue higher education and achieve financial independence, said Dr Mozah Al Malki (pictured).
There is a huge gap between Qatari men and women in terms of education. While most women pursue university education, men generally prefer to look for government jobs right after early or secondary education.
And the fact that women are increasingly becoming financially independent due to being highly educated also explains why the incidence of divorce in the community is high.
The other major factor that might be pushing the rate of divorce up is that earlier it was not easy for women in this region to seek divorce from their husbands although the law has always been there in keeping with the basic tenets of Islam which permits a woman to seek ‘khola’ (divorce) on genuine grounds.
“But now the law makes it easier for women to seek divorce,” Al Malki said in remarks to this newspaper yesterday.
Statistics suggest that the rate of divorce in the Qatari community is somewhere around 40 percent — a very high rate indeed, lamented the psychologist who made history when she filed nomination for Central Municipal Council (CMC) elections in March 1999.
Although she lost the poll, she became the first Qatari woman to enter politics which was until then an unchallenged domain of men in this part of the world.
Women remain busy pursuing education and then they land jobs. It, therefore, becomes difficult to get the right match, so most women remain unmarried, she said.
Obviously, a woman who has a PhD would not like to marry an undergraduate or even a simple graduate. This explains why as many as 30 percent young women are unmarried and their number could even go up.
Asked whether marrying educated Muslim expatriates could be an effective solution to this problem, she said: “But such marriages require permission from the interior ministry and it takes time.”
About the increasing rate of divorce, she said many factors were at play. Men picking more than one wife and not treating their wives equally could be one of the factors.
“Men tend to marry more than once simply for pleasure,” she said. Polygamous men do not take marriage and family seriously.
A kind of monotony sets in marriages that are 10 to 15 years old. Couples should think of innovative ways to break this monotony and make a fresh start in life.
“They should, for example, visit the same hotel they were in for honeymoon,” she said. “Such things prove effective in saving troubled marriages, and I have written extensively about it,” Al Malki said.
December 20, 2009
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One of the first things visitors say when I take them around Doha is “It’s so clean!” said in a voice of total wonder. Doha IS clean, noticeably clean. Along the Corniche, everything is clean – and manicured. Doha is beautiful. The roads are beautiful, and getting beautifuller – er . . . more beautiful.
Qatar is not a democracy. It has a monarch, the Amir. The Amir has huge resources, and he channels much of his resources into infrastructure – highways, water treatment, electricity, parks (along the Corniche, wireless internet is provided to the community, totally FREE, miles of free internet), education – and serious work is being done to raise the level of education and educational possibilities continually – planning for future food and water, trying to insure that if and when the gas runs out, Qatar will have a sustainable economy.
It’s not a job I would want. It’s a lot of hard work, and who do you trust to share your vision and help you get the job done? Every day must have its frustrations, and the triumphs take a lot of work and perseverance. Building a country’s infrastructure is not for the faint-hearted.
But the job has its perks, and one of them is that you can create your own viewing stand for the 0800 Friday morning military review parade. This reviewing stand makes me grin. This Amir has some Events people with a flair for the dramatic and a tip of the hat to the traditional at the same time. While some complain that the new souks are like Disney Does Doha, anyone who used to go there and goes there now will tell you that there is new life in the souks. They are clean and safe and light and well cared for.
Anyway, I digress.
Here is where the Amir gets to sit to review his military at the parade tomorrow morning at 0800:
I was afraid to go any closer, as people were practicing for the parade, security might not like me taking photos, but how cool is this? They used original beit as-shar (house of hair, i.e. wool) fabric for the inner lining of the review tent. I totally love it. This fabric was originally made mostly from goat hair, but also stripes of sheep and camel hair. I have some. It’s tough and strong, and in panels, woven by the women. I don’t think they make tent bodies like this any more.
December 17, 2009
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Seeing ads like this one always cracks me up. I don’t see so many specifying “must be under 30 years old” any more, but evidently, it is not politically incorrect here to specify that they must look good. 😉 It also cracks me up that companies are allowed to specify nationalities – like wouldn’t you think we could all work together? But it isn’t so – companies tend to have a Philipino staff OR an Indian staff, and rarely both.
December 1, 2009
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Beauty, Doha, ExPat Life, Living Conditions, Qatar, Women's Issues, Words, Work Related Issues |
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What excites me about this project is that the train which will begin construction soon, also ties in with a beautifully laid out public train system to link major hubs in Qatar. I wish I had taken a photo of the map in the paper – it looks like the London tube system, different lines – different colors, circles where you can switch lines . . . Qatar is definitely going to do this, and to me, it is very exciting.
What public transportation means to me – instead of driving, which I don’t mind all that much, I can sit and read a book!
Qatar-Bahrain causeway work to start in early 2010
Web posted at: 11/23/2009 6:49:46
Source ::: Reuters
ABU DHABI: Construction of a 40km causeway that would connect gas exporter Qatar to the Gulf island state of Bahrain will start in the first quarter of 2010, an official said yesterday.
“We are evaluating the final design and cost of the project and expect construction to start early next year,” Jaber Al Mohannadi, general manager of the Qatar-Bahrain Causeway Foundation, told a conference in Abu Dhabi.
Construction was initially scheduled to start in 2009, but the addition of rail lines delayed the project.
“Project completion will be in 2015,” he said, but declined to give the estimated cost of the project because the figure was yet to be finalized.
Contractors selected to carry out the project include France’s Vinci and Germany’s Hochtief AG, Mohannadi said.
The latest official cost estimate of the causeway, one of the longest in the world, stands at $3bn to be shared between Bahrain and Qatar. Users of the bridge will have to pay a toll, Mohannadi said.
Jassim Ali, a member of the financial and economic affairs committee of Bahrain’s parliament, estimated the project to cost $4-$5bn.
“Qatar will probably be providing some soft financing to Bahrain” to help cover its share of the cost of the project, Ali said.
Qatar, the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, has one of the world’s highest per capita gross domestic product, while Bahrain is a small oil producer with limited public finances.
The rail tracks on the causeway would be part of a planned train network that will connect the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE is an important business hub of the region.
The 1,940km GCC rail network will cost $20-$25bn as Gulf Arab states plan to spend more than $100bn on various rail projects to improve public transportation.
Qatar and German rail and logistics group Deutsche Bahn [DBN.UL] signed a $23bn deal that provides for building a passenger and freight railway.
Bahrain in April launched a new port that it hopes would help it become a shipping hub for the northern part of the Gulf.
November 23, 2009
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Building, Bureaucracy, Community, Doha, ExPat Life, Interconnected, Leadership, Living Conditions, News, Social Issues, Work Related Issues | public transportation |
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This has provided us with an ongoing burble of amusement, every time we drive into our compound.
Someone wants the name of the compound in the garden. It seemed a simple enough request, doesn’t it?
The first try I saw, was a perfect ‘A’ followed by a second ‘A’. I started laughing. It was being put in by laborers who are probably illiterate in their own language, much less have any idea about western letters. To them, these are just meaningless shapes, not symbols for sounds. The second ‘A’ was gone the next day, torn out, and replaced with the appropriate letter.
But concrete blocks are big and unwieldy. When the name was finished, it was big, with no spaces between words, and no ‘s’ on the end.
They tore it out, too.
Now, working with smaller bricks, working with templates, working with a diagram, the name is finally being completed accurately. It is actually lovely, so we can’t laugh anymore.
I wonder how we would do, trying to lay out the same in Arabic . . .
November 2, 2009
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Here There and Everywhere 