sit at a table as the song “Believe” by Cher plays. Its frequency is high in Doha as well.
Rebecca tells me this is her third year at Schrub, and it is her first job she acquired after college even though in university she studied history with minimal studies in economics and computer science.
“I’m competent, but I wasn’t really born to number-crunch or code,” Rebecca says.
“Would you prefer a job incorporating history rather than economics and computers?” I ask.
“I guess maybe teaching, someday.”
“Why do you not pursue it now?”
She raises and lowers her shoulders and drinks her coffee and scans the room.
“You should pursue what you want to pursue,” I say.
“Yeah, well, you can’t always get what you want.” She laughs, but to herself and quietly. “And if you try sometimes, you just might find you get fucked over even worse.” Then she consumes a long drink and says she should get back to the office.
I follow her, and outside she retrieves a cigarette pack from her purse and smokes. We do not talk at all as we reenter the WTC. I think she is upset with me because I sounded like I believe I am better at my job since it is closer to my career goals. I disagree with her statement, however. When people start believing they cannot get what they want, they trash their original goals and settle for smaller ones.
We pass the coffeepot in the office, and Rebecca refills her cup from Starbucks, removes a small purse from her bigger purse and extracts one quarter, two dimes, and one nickel as if she is performing surgery and removing tumors, and deposits them in the vending machine for a bag of potato chips, and I understand she is not upset because of my previous hypothesis, but because she thinks I am wealthy, because (1) I said Zahira does not have loans without explaining it is because tuition is discounted in Qatar; (2) I paid for our coffee with a $50 bill; (3) I said she should do whatever job she wants without considering the salaries; and also possibly because (4) Qatar has a high GDP per capita.
I feel so humiliated that I do not know how to apologize to Rebecca for it, and we spend the rest of the day laboring with minimal conversation and leave independently.
On Sunday morning I again do not know what to do, and I do not want to reencounter Rebecca at the office. I consider calling relatives of my family’s friends, but they will ask me about my job and I do not want to discuss it now.
I would like to go to a Broadway play or a classy restaurant, but I prefer to conserve money, and also I do not have anyone to partner with. So I take the subway to explore the neighborhoods downtown. In Chelsea I observe a few art galleries, although I do not enjoy the paintings in them as much as the ones in the Museum of Modern Art, probably because I do not understand them as well, and it is difficult to enjoy a system you are not competent in. In the early night I walk through Little Italy and then Chinatown.
It begins raining lightly, so I enter a restaurant and order vegetarian dumplings. As I wait for my food at a small square table next to the window, a Chinese family with one grandmother, two parents, and five children eats at a round table next to me. They slightly parallel the one quarter, two dimes, and one nickel Rebecca deposited in the vending machine. Their table is littered with steaming bowls and plates of noodles and vegetables and meats. They are all conversing with each other, and of course I cannot decipher what they are saying, but even if we spoke the same language I think I would not 100% decipher it, because frequently families have their own mode of speaking, e.g., my father usually does not understand what Zahira and I are saying.
Out the window the blue and red lights mirror on the wet black street. In a few hours Zahira and my father will eat their breakfast of bread with labneh, olives, and yogurt.
When the waiter deposits the dumplings on my table, I ask him to
Rebecca tells me this is her third year at Schrub, and it is her first job she acquired after college even though in university she studied history with minimal studies in economics and computer science.
“I’m competent, but I wasn’t really born to number-crunch or code,” Rebecca says.
“Would you prefer a job incorporating history rather than economics and computers?” I ask.
“I guess maybe teaching, someday.”
“Why do you not pursue it now?”
She raises and lowers her shoulders and drinks her coffee and scans the room.
“You should pursue what you want to pursue,” I say.
“Yeah, well, you can’t always get what you want.” She laughs, but to herself and quietly. “And if you try sometimes, you just might find you get fucked over even worse.” Then she consumes a long drink and says she should get back to the office.
I follow her, and outside she retrieves a cigarette pack from her purse and smokes. We do not talk at all as we reenter the WTC. I think she is upset with me because I sounded like I believe I am better at my job since it is closer to my career goals. I disagree with her statement, however. When people start believing they cannot get what they want, they trash their original goals and settle for smaller ones.
We pass the coffeepot in the office, and Rebecca refills her cup from Starbucks, removes a small purse from her bigger purse and extracts one quarter, two dimes, and one nickel as if she is performing surgery and removing tumors, and deposits them in the vending machine for a bag of potato chips, and I understand she is not upset because of my previous hypothesis, but because she thinks I am wealthy, because (1) I said Zahira does not have loans without explaining it is because tuition is discounted in Qatar; (2) I paid for our coffee with a $50 bill; (3) I said she should do whatever job she wants without considering the salaries; and also possibly because (4) Qatar has a high GDP per capita.
I feel so humiliated that I do not know how to apologize to Rebecca for it, and we spend the rest of the day laboring with minimal conversation and leave independently.
On Sunday morning I again do not know what to do, and I do not want to reencounter Rebecca at the office. I consider calling relatives of my family’s friends, but they will ask me about my job and I do not want to discuss it now.
I would like to go to a Broadway play or a classy restaurant, but I prefer to conserve money, and also I do not have anyone to partner with. So I take the subway to explore the neighborhoods downtown. In Chelsea I observe a few art galleries, although I do not enjoy the paintings in them as much as the ones in the Museum of Modern Art, probably because I do not understand them as well, and it is difficult to enjoy a system you are not competent in. In the early night I walk through Little Italy and then Chinatown.
It begins raining lightly, so I enter a restaurant and order vegetarian dumplings. As I wait for my food at a small square table next to the window, a Chinese family with one grandmother, two parents, and five children eats at a round table next to me. They slightly parallel the one quarter, two dimes, and one nickel Rebecca deposited in the vending machine. Their table is littered with steaming bowls and plates of noodles and vegetables and meats. They are all conversing with each other, and of course I cannot decipher what they are saying, but even if we spoke the same language I think I would not 100% decipher it, because frequently families have their own mode of speaking, e.g., my father usually does not understand what Zahira and I are saying.
Out the window the blue and red lights mirror on the wet black street. In a few hours Zahira and my father will eat their breakfast of bread with labneh, olives, and yogurt.
When the waiter deposits the dumplings on my table, I ask him to
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