Brochure Bodies
By
Prakash Subbarao
Schools close in the
UAE during the summer months of July and August. The temperature shoots up
and people hurriedly head for home on annual vacation.
During this period, airlines substantially jacked up the air fares. Some,
who cannot afford to pay the air fares do not take a vacation at all but
work.
Although temperatures soar in summer, one (generally) doesn't feel the
heat as offices are air conditioned. However, the reality on the street is
very different, with temperatures soaring to 48 degrees Celsius.
There is a widely held belied the in the UAE that temperatures often
exceed 50 degrees Celcius. The rule, in such cases, is that the government
announce a "stop work" over the radio and TV. In reality, this never
happens and the temperature never, officially, crosses 50 degrees
irrespective of what those crazy thermometers are indicating.
The Summer of 2003
In the Summer of 2003, I helped organize a Summer Camp in the U.A.E.
I used to work, in those days, for a computer education organization. For
nine months of the year they were into Computer Education. However, during
those hot summer months when most families went home, they turned their
deserted computer education centres all over the country into Summer
Camps.
Since computer education is much “regionalized” – children do not want to
travel too far from their home. Therefore, one must create a lot of
awareness about the Summer Camp one is conducting within a radious of a
kilometer from the place where these Summer Camps are conducted.
A very cost effective (and faily efficient) way of creating awareness is
to drop leaflets at each flat in the immediate vicinity of the education
center. Th ebest way to do so is to take a lift to the top floor of the
building (in Sharjah, this can be as high as the 40th floor!) and then
walk down, floor by floor, pushing the leaflets under each door.
Every building has a Caretaker. Most caretakers cooperate in allowing this
activity. Some don't and such buildings need to be skipped.
Another way of creating awareness is to seek the permission of schools to
hand over the leaflets to parents at the “annual day” of the school where
parents and teachers meet for the generally distasteful task of discussing
the ward’s (poor) performance.
Bodies to deliver brochures
This brings us to the theme of this story. The need for bodies to deliver
brochures.
Since this was the first time that I was conducting this exercise, I felt
the best way to go about it was to put a small classified in “Gulf News”,
the English daily of the UAE.
We decided that the best area to run the ad would be under “Miscellaneous”
category and we ran an advertisement for “delivery boys”.
On the appointed day our ad ran and we were soon besieged with job
seekers. These "job seekers" come from all types of backgrounds and all
walks of life, as you will shortly find out. Back in those days, people
would often be on one company's visa and be working (illegally) for
another comopany, the first company having stopped paying their salary
etc.
I left it to my secretary to wade through the logistics of it and
shortlist 6 people so that 4 could be finally selected. Being an efficient
soul (though this was her first job) she soon had the six lined up. Since
I was pressed for time, I left it to her to deecide on which four persons
to select.
Delivery Boys look like Sales Executives
The next day, at 9 am sharp, the four gentlemen were there, smartly
dressed, shoes polished, fresh eyed and eager to start work.
“These don’t look like delivery boys to me” I muttered to myself. “They
look like sales executives!”. I called the secretary in and asked to see
their résumés.
The first was a highly qualified CAD Engineer. He had been (I found out
later) earning a princely salary with a technology company in Dubai. Then
his company stopped paying salaries (a very common occurrence in the
Middle East). He couldn't leave them and look for another job because he
was on their visa and, if they so decided, they could go to the Immigtaion
Department and stamp a three year work ban on his passport. He was
desperate for another source of income and so he finally “agreed” to write
off his dues to the extent of US$ 5000 if they would agree to release him
and not enforce a ban. His name was Robin and he was a Filipino. He was a
very nice guy, always smiling, with a "can do" attitude. He has gone
through a lot of hardships in life but had anexuberantly optimistic
attitude towards the future. He told me he was flat broke and had
therefore taken up this short term assignment where he would earn about
US$ 300 working part time for a month. When I asked him where he was
staying, he told me that he had a girlfriend in town who had agreed to let
“sleep now, pay later”. He gave me a knowing wink.
The second résumé was that of D’Silva, a Srilankan. He is a qualified
accountant and had, till recently, worked as an accounts officer for a 4
star hotel. The hotel went bust, the management changed and D’Silva found
himself on the streets sans a job. Sans friends. Sans money. He had gone
from a white collar worker to an illegal almost overnight. He could stay
on as long as his visa was valid and would then have to leave. He was
maximizing in earnings opportunity in every way as long as he was in the
UAE. He was a hard task master, I was soon to learn. He became the leader
of the group – the guy who ensured that the other guys were doing what
they said they were doing and, more importantly, what we had told them to
do. He gave me the reports every day (and he gave my secretary and hourly
review via cell phone.
The third guy was an Indian named Sudhir. He was an office boy in his
previous company. That company too set him adrift in the choppy seas of
unemployment and Sudhir was scrambling to survive. He was the quietest of
them all since his communication in English was poor. Or maybe he was
naturally taciturn. He had a very strong trait that I noticed much later
and which made him stand out in the group.
The fourth was a student named Ankur. Also an Indian and the son of a taxi
driver, he wanted to earn some money for himself. Ankur was the smart glib
guy of the lot. At age 18 he reminded me of my son and I tended to go easy
with him.
The boys turned out to be trustworthy and hard working and work progressed
smoothly. Soon phase 1 was completed – the dropping of brochures
flat-by-flat in a multi storeyed building. This was also the easiet part
of their job. Two guys took a lift to the top floor and then started their
routine and, helped by gravity, walked their way down 15 to 20 floors (or,
in some cases, 40 floors). They would complete the target in about 2 hours
and then go home for a well deserved rest. This was OK with me. I didn’t
want to over work them in the summer heat.
Phase 2: Standing in the sun
Soon we went into phase 2. This was the “hand-it-to-the-parent” phase. It
required standing outside the gate of a school, in the scorching mid day
heat (48 degrees Celsius) and handing over the brochures to the parents as
they came out of the school.
None of the guys could do more than twenty minutes at a time.
We had a car standing by with air conditioner continuously on and piles of
cold drinks for them to consume. They would dive in for a ten minute R & R
session before D’Silva ordered them back on the job.
It was in this phase that we noticed Sudhir’s strength. He could just
stand there, bare headed in the sun, and hand the leaflets out without
taking a break. He came from a very tough stock.
Since I was almost all the time with them we became friends. I go to know
them all well. They told me their sorrows, their ambitions, their hopes,
their aspirations.
They had one thing in common. They all begged for a job with my company.
If I could have given them a job I would have done it without a moment’s
hesitation. But I couldn’t.
The month ended. Their task was completed. It was time for them to leave.
Their salaries had to come from our company Head Office in Abu Dhabi and
there was a slight delay regarding this. I knew how desperate they were
for the money and I promised them that as soon as the money came in, I
would let them know.
When the money did come in, two weeks later, everyone except Robin came to
the office to collect the money. I called Robin on his cell phone and he
told me glumly that he didn't have any money on him; not even bus fare.
That evening I drove to Bur Dubai in my company car and handed him the
money. He thanked me profusely for this gesture.
We all promised to keep in touch, but in turbulent times such promises are
never kept.
About three months after they had left I came across their telephone
numbers in my address book. On an impulse I called Robin’s cell phone. A
female voice answered. It sounded like a Filipina. Maybe it was the girl
that he was "sleeping with now, and paying later".She seemed very
suspicious. “Why you want to know where Robin is?” (sic) she demanded
repeatedly. After I had explained at length as to why I wanted to meet him
she relented and told me that he was back in the Phillipines. It seems he
got a good job with a multinational at Jebel Ali Free Zone and was about
to be sent by them to Japan for a CAD training program when it was
discovered that he had some missing documentation. So he went back home to
set his papers in order presumably to return to the job.
D’Silva's phone yielded a “this number has been disconnected message”. My
only link with him was that of a phone number and that link had got cut.
I kept meeting Ankur off and on. He used to drop in now and again to the
office to meet me. A year later he left for India to continue his
education there.
Sudhir had no contact number to start with. “I will keep in touch” he
said. But he never did. I never saw him again.
All that is left with me are the very warm memories of the Summer in 2003
when I met four bodies and they became buddies.
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