I apologize to all my readers, few as they are, but I have been lacking any inspiration, not because of anything, just that I guess my mind went blank. Now that’s out of the way I would like to come straight to the point. Most of us work, and most have office boys in our places of work. Almost all of those office boys are Indians or coming from the subcontinent. The question is have you ever had a conversation with him/her? I mean a true person to person conversation, not the regular hello or good morning. It could be an eye opening conversation if you only would listen to them.
Most of you wouldn’t have heard of a company called "Basma" or Bahrain Services and Maintenance Company. Actually it's very ironic that it's called Basma, which is Arabic for smile. I certainly don’t see any real smile on any of their janitors or office boys, although they do have to have a fake smile on their faces when greeting you. I have a different name for this company, how about "Bahrain Slave Driver Company"? Sounds just about right when you see their ugly faces. In my work place we have got several janitors from this particular company, and I have had befriended some of them who I see on a regular basis. I have noticed one thing about all of them though; they all seem like circus animals that have been whipped so many times that they are laid broken, tamed and helpless. They have a constant fear in their eyes even after working with us and knowing us for so many years. I have tried to talk to some of them honestly but they seem to think that I would go behind their back and talk to their company, but some of them have opened up slightly to me and I didn’t like what I heard. I have learned that they have to wake up every day around 4:00 AM, and they go back to their labor camps after 11:00 PM. All of these hours of course are hard working labor with little or no rest periods in between. You might see your office boys work in your workplace and think that like you they head home to rest after working hours, the answer is no, they have to go somewhere else to either clean or some other hard job until every drop of energy in their body is taken and some more. Our office boys have to work here for 11 hours, and then go to Standard Chartered bank to clean up and come back here to secure all doors and windows before leaving for some place to clean up again and finally go to City Center to clean up. About their pay, just take my word that they get very little. So little that they are practically slaves with a tip. If you must know its 40 BD but wait, they got free food and accommodation. So basically a prisoner with unemployment pay here in Bahrain would get a better deal. They also get sacked for the least mistake, and get shipped back to their home on the first flight.
So now that you have known, what do you think about your life? What do you think about your work or your boss? More importantly what would you want to do about it if you think this is wrong? Sadly not many people care nowadays to do much about it. This might only be one example of many here.
Oh and just when I was about to upload this post, one of the office boys have told me that he might have his contract terminated because he refused to go stay in another camp located in a crappy area. WOW!
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