Dear diary
I have always thought that writing diaries was only a woman’s thing. Did you ever hear about the diaries of Mr. folan??? No! But lately I reached a point close to explosion!
I am a mid 30’s guy, working in XYZ company for the past 10 years. In other words, since the day I graduated from university I found a spot here, and since then I didn’t leave. My career had its ups and downs of course, but lately it became just stagnat. It has been 4 years since my last promotion and I don’t think they will promote anyone anytime soon.
***
It all started on this sunny Sunday.
My manager, Mr. Z, dropped by my office and introduced to me H, the girl who was going to be my assistant.
She was a cute girl, with a clueless face and very little work experience. Her poorly written CV mentioned that she worked for a couple of months in a small enterprise, but as this experience was totally irrelevant to what we do, she was as good as a fresh graduate. She was a bit too girly-girl if you know what I mean. A bit too pink and light blue. Totally not my type, so don’t have any thought about that.
The next day I started teaching her step-by-step all the things she needed to know. Meanwhile, I was under a hell of a pressure to finish what I already needed to do and at the same time prepare an adequate program for her.
***
A friend of mine once told me after a long discussion about gender equality that I was very feminist, and that this mentality is not for our conservative society. What a funny thing to say! Yes I believe in women having the same rights as men to have a the same opportunities and achieve their dreams. And as I had an amazing tutor to show me the way in the corporate jungle, I decided to adopt H professionally.
By time she got to know the work environment, and damn she was very smart!
I can’t believe that till this day some people in my country still claim that working women are the reason behind the high unemployment rate! What the hell!!!
When I looked at her, I smile and remind myself that there’s still hope for the younger generation to accomplish something in this country, something that my generation failed to do.
***
Newsletter # 1401
Tuesday 20th May 2008
As our company is extending its business through alliances with ABC organization, the HR is happy to announce the following:
Expert position…
… very competitive package…
Requirements:
– Masters degree or phd.
– at least 6 years of experience as a Team Leader
– highly motivated personality
…..
To apply, follow this link: intranet.ABC/HR.
Deadline: Sunday 25th of May.
Good luck.
***
All day long I had this big smile on my face. At last!
They should have written my name on it just to save time.
This field of expertise was my playground.
How stupid I was!
And the funny thing is now I can not tell whether her previous behavior was real or was she just too smart for me to handle!!
***
In yesterday’s staff meeting, Mr. Z made the announcement:
“It was decided who is chosen for the ABC exchange of expertise. It will be Miss H. Please come to my office after the meeting to discuss the details”
***
!!!!
………….
&^$#@$%*$$%^
***
Later on my colleagues dropped by my desk to give condolences. They stuff like “maalesh”, “kheirha fi gheirha”, “hard luck”, “this thing is not worth it aslan”…
Then afterwards I got to know that the so-called “objective” screening process was pressured by not-so-objective feminist idea from the upper management (suggested by you-know-who), because the company wanted to show the ABC institution how civilized it is!
***
Today I changed my status on facebook.
“I am an anti-feminist advocating gender equality…”
***
The End
———–
I am happy for the comments, but mmmmm guys, this is fiction 🙂
I discovered that i didn’t mention this directly in the begining of the story (that’s why I amended parts of it), but it was fairly obvious at the end that it is said with the voice of a guy.
Gender equality – anti-feminist
I hope the message is clearer now 🙂
The whole idea behind this was a chat with Mohamed, my fiance. We were talking about feminism and women rights. We agreed that some angry feminists will lead to a counter reaction from moderate males (especially those who advocate gender equality) when the woman gets better chances for the sole reason of her being a woman. It reminded me of a scene in a movie called “Crash”, it’s a very good movie. A white man’s business was ruined due to a laws in favor of African Americans, and the irony is that this guy was sympathetic to African Americans and made sure that his business will not discriminate between them. If I were that guy I would be very pissed! The same goes for feminism. I get angry when men are treated better than women for just being a man, and on the other hand I hate it when I see women treated better in their jobs just for being females! That’s was the whole point of the story 🙂 So no, it didn’t happen to me 🙂
Kaleidoscope 