It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this city is cursed. It seems like the entire population just does not give a shit about the job that they are paid to do. They go to work, routinely pass the time, make it look like they are doing their job, clock out when their work hours are done, and consider the job done.

This curse affects almost everyone, in the private and public sectors. It affects Jordanians and non-Jordanians, professionals and non-professionals.

Case in hand: Tahboob Kitchens. We decided to get our kitchen from Tahboob, although it is more expensive than a lot of the rest, thinking that we are not in the mood to deal with unprofessionals as we too busy to spend most of our day following up. We go, sit with their designer, who designs us a kitchen, gives us an offer, and promises us that they will start putting it together on July 26. Wait, we tell him, but before we agreed, you told us it will take you 40 days, and that’s more than 40 days. He says they are busy before that, and that’s what we should expect from a successful company. Ok. Whatever.

July 26th comes and goes and the kitchen is installed by the agreed on date of August 1st. So far so good, except its not, because the kitchen is missing several compartment doors, which they said they will come put up soon. We can them a week later and they say something about a glass door being made by a glass-smith and that’s its still not ready yet. Wait, what glass door? We didn’t ask for any glass doors. No problem, they say, we’ll put a wooden one. We tried to call them every 4 days or so in the past month and yet they kept stalling. Yesterday, they call, “The glass door is almost ready”.

DUDE. And what about the rest of the doors?

It’s been over a month.

Case in hand: The governmental workers who were re-paving the pavements in Shmesani yesterday. My grandmother’s house stands on a little cul-de-sac which the workers were using to park their trucks over night over the past week. My grandmother’s house is around 40 years old, and on the pavements stand several huge 40-years old pecan trees that my grandfather brought with him from Palestine. These trees are a huge part of our family, every year for so long, we collect them, dry them, and spend the rest of the year eating them.

The governmental workers paving the streets did not care about anything though, they thoughtlessly drove their trucks without caring about the trees in the streets, and their branches broke. My grandmother and aunt freaked out, looking at the branches as if they are their babies, and taking them inside to try to save as many as possible, and hoping that the actually tree did not die.

Of course, that could have easily been avoided if the workers were just a little more conscientious of their surroundings.

And these are just two little examples while I have many.

Why are we like this? Why doesn’t a person care about perfecting the job that he is doing? Why is everything done with “the back of their hands”? People in this country pride themselves in being both Muslim and religious, something which I would never understand, because Islam clearly values conscience and good work. In Islam work is given special importance to the extent that it is considered as an act of worship in itself.

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