From Lama J…
When I graduated from my University in Amman, I was young and excited to find a job. I dreamt of working in a company throughout the four years it took for me to acquire my degree. I always wanted to put on a suit and be a business woman. As young girl, I looked at women I saw like this as sophisticated and sharp and I wanted to be the same.
I got my University degree and unlike my fellow graduates, I immediately started looking for a job. Most of the people I went to school with were thinking of higher education, but I wanted to work and start chasing after my dreams. I was 22 years old when I graduated with a degree in English Translation and my first job was working as a translator in a small government office.
The office was small and dirty, but I needed experience and accepted this was just how it was going to be at the start. I worked for a very old man and within a month I realized he was as sour as could be. He used to make me work day and night, sometimes asking me to arrange his office and order his coffee. I felt like a maid, but I knew I had no choice, but to be patient. My mom told me many times I shouldn’t quit my first job so quickly, as I needed to learn and gain some experience.
After couple of months, I started searching the newspaper for another opportunity and ended up working for the Jordan Yellow Pages as the assistant to the manager. The boss was short, totally unattractive, and married with two sons. With that said, he was busy chasing every woman in the office. There were more than one hundred people working in this particular office and about half were women. Some were married, some engaged and others were single, but this boss never really cared about a women’s marital status.
It was around this time when I starting to hear the men in the office joking about “taking the stamp.” Not long after I started my new job, a male co-worker even directly asked me, “Did you get the stamp yet?”
As I stood there and listened to him let out a big belly laugh, I had no idea what he was talking about. Later on, however, while on a business trip with my boss, I realized what they guys in the office were talking about.
This little fat hobbit of a man literally knocked on my hotel room door in the middle of the night. I immediately knew what he wanted, so when I opened the door I pretended I was sick. This didn’t stop him from harassing me to come into my room. I refused, but still he insisted. When he eventually figured out he wasn’t going to get to give me “the stamp” he began to shout. “When we get back to Jordan, I don’t want to see your face again!”
When we returned I was immediately fired and was not even given the remainder of my salary. In case you’re wondering if there was anything I could do about - the answer is a big no.
Soon enough, I was once again going through every newspaper and searching for a new job. Shortly thereafter, I found myself working for a large IT company. It was a big name company with big name brands and I thought I was at last exactly where I wanted to be.
I thought the CEO of an IT company must be either a nerd or an old man focused on work. I was also happy to see the staff was almost entirely made up of unattractive men. This made me think the boss cared about work and nothing else. I was offered a good salary, but the working hours were really long. I didn’t care though and simply did my best each day to do my job.
Things then got strange. As I started to get to know my new boss more, I realized he was a porn freak. He used to send me dirty jokes, somehow thinking he was cool in the process. I didn’t like it at all and felt I needed to politely tell him as much, but never got around to it.
And so, while working late on a big presentation and after everybody left the office except for the two of us, he came to the printing room and closed the door behind him. All of a sudden he jumped on me. I screamed, slapped him across his face, took my bag and stormed out of the office. I was shivering and crying, but laughing at the same time. I mean the guy didn’t even work up to it!
I told my mom I simply couldn’t find a decent man to work for and that’s when she told me to just stay home until something I felt comfortable with came up.
After several weeks, I received a call from an embassy. They invited me in for an interview and I was so happy. As it turned out, I got the job and worked for a foreign ambassador to Jordan for the next two years. He was such a great guy and treated me well the entire time I was there. The embassies Commercial Attaché, however, was a wrinkly old grandpa who just loved slapping girls on their asses, but that was all he ever did. I needed to settle down in a career and just let things be, so I took the odd slap across my ass and stayed put.
I eventually felt done with Jordan and wanted to hit a more professional market. To work in the West, I thought, would be my best move. I also thought a non-Arab boss would be more professional. Once again I began looking for work, but this time I wasn’t looking through Amman newspapers. Europe was my new target and not long after, much to the surprise of my family and most anyone who knew me, I was on a plane to Germany.
I took a job in Frankfurt with a security company and my new boss was a German guy in his mid-fifties. He was kind enough to show me the real-deal, taught me a lot about business and believed in me. I ended up visiting and working in all his office branches. France, Denmark, Belgium, Amsterdam and Switzerland – suddenly this young girl from Amman who dreamed of being an international business woman was doing just that. Along the way there was one stumble, however.
A few months after settling down, I was cooking my dinner and readying myself for a night at home. It was -15 degrees outside. The weather was so cold in Germany during the winter, I spent a lot of time indoors.
Unexpectedly, my door bell rang and using the intercom system I went to check who it was. Much to my surprise, it turned out to be my boss. When I opened the door he was waiting on the steps, cradling a bottle of wine in his arms. As I stood in the doorway in my pajamas, I wondered what on earth he could want. “If you haven’t your dinner yet, I’m here to cook you some good German food,” he said with as smile.
I invited him in, but told him I’d finished my dinner and was in fact going to bed soon. Nevertheless, he sat down and opened the bottle of wine, before asking me to join him on the sofa. I got scared at this point and didn’t know what to do. I remember immediately worrying about being fired and having to go back to the Middle East – something I desperately didn’t want to do.
It was at this point I thought to bring up religion. “Sir, I don’t drink. I am a Muslim,” I said politely.
“So what? Some Muslims do,” he replied.
I told him that he was right, but I wasn’t one of them. Still not getting the reaction I was looking for, I came up with a plan I was sure would work. I pretended I needed to pray, went to my room, put on my prayer clothes and came back with the Quran in my hand. “I will be with you after I finish my prayers,” I said stoically.
As I turned to walk away, it took all my effort not to laugh at loud at the look of shock on his face. He ended up leaving the house, while I was praying. I laughed for hours after that and today I still do whenever I think about it. He didn’t try anything with me that night, but it was clear he was checking to see what he could find. He never bothered me again after that night and was later let go by the company.
I eventually left Europe and moved to Dubai. I took couple of jobs and the hits juts kept on coming. One client asked for some tips to help him better enjoy sex with his wife, an HR rep looked at my breasts throughout an entire interview, another client asked what type of underwear I preferred. Some potential bosses and clients even offered me things like a personal driver or a free apartment, but just as long as I was willing to be their back-up entertainment system.
Something most men out there don’t realize is that women all over the world have to deal with this kind of nonsense every day. Sometimes it’s scary, sometimes tragically funny, and always uncomfortable; even more so in the Middle East we are less protected under the law than in the West.
Whatever the case may be, to all you perverts out there – we women just want to work! Get over yourself and no, I’m not telling you what color my underwear is.
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