Musical cubicles

From what I understand, the way my company works is through contracts with different Universities and language institutes.  The way these contracts work under Saudi law is that the company has to provide a certain number of teachers for a certain amount of time.  If the company fails to provide this number throughout the agreed upon time, they get nothing.  They aren't paid a partial amount for the teachers they did provide or the time they did have enough teachers, they get squat.  So, understandably, they hedge their bets.  They send more teachers than they need to places, for the specific reason that they know a certain amount of teachers will not last the school year.  So, they need a lot of bodies, mainly as insurance against the loss of the current teachers.  I'm sure it has been pointed out to them that if they treated their teachers better to begin with, there might not be so many who quit, but they seem to have chosen the more bodies route instead.

So, when I arrived in Dammam, there were 24 cubicles and (including the new arrivals) 32 teachers.  Those without cubicles either bunked up with someone who had a cubicle, or hung out on the couches.  For the first two months or so, I really didn't mind not having a space to call my own.  After all, I wasn't really teaching, aside from the occasional substitute gig, and wondering around homeless was a good way to meet all the other teachers.  However, as the end of the year approached, and teachers began to leave, some for good, some just for the summer, spots began to open up.

I had been using a cubicle on the left side of the staff room near the back as my temporary home, along with Luisa, Rachel, and Sara.  Rachel had left about a week or two after I arrived, and the cubicle, by order of arrival date, was officially Luisa's, but she didn't mind if Sara and I used it because she preferred the couches, which were closer to her friends in the back right side of the staff room.  Sara and I took turns sharing the computer, and even squeezed two rolly-chairs into the tight space so we could both sit in there together.

It was a perfect spot really, because it was right next to Stephanie, a Brit who had made her home in Ethiopia and opened a charity school for children there  Sara and I both really enjoyed talking with her and the three of us became good friends.  Stephanie had agreed to come to Saudi and work for a six months because funding had been a little slow this year, and she could afford to pay six ethiopian teachers salaries for the year on what they were paying her here for just six months.  Use to making do with not a lot, Stephanie had gotten creative when she arrived and there were no cubicles available. She usurped a corner near the emergency exit  that had been used to store old textbooks and made it her own.  Though it wasn't a traditional cubicle, she managed alright by moving a small table that used to sit near the front into it, and rounding up an older model computer from the labs that was being replaced and convinced the IT ladies to let her have it.  Instant cubicle.

Stephanie's contract ended on June 6th and after much fighting with the company, she did actually manage to leave on the 7th (see the post "You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave...." for more on that story.  So I decided that rather than wait for a real cubicle to become available, I didn't mind moving into Stephanies old spot.   Sara had unofficially adopted the cubicle of a woman who was away on pregnancy leave, and so Luisa finally had her cubicle back.  It seemed like all was right with the world.

This lasted about three days until the lead teacher's last day. She had been working in Dammam longer than anyone (4 years) and therefor had the "best" cubicle, which because of a support beam in the middle of the room had a little extra space (we are talking inches here).  Luisa wanted to move into the cubicle, not for the extra space, but because it was right next to and across from her best buddies.  One of those buddies "called" the cubicle for Luisa, which offended another teacher who had been here the next longest after the lead teacher and felt that she deserved the prime real estate.  A third teacher, who was pregnant, felt she deserved the cubicle because the extra space allowed a small armchair to fit into the cubicle, which the pregnant teacher would need for her naps, and to help with back pain.  Luisa then argued that as the newest person here without a cubicle, tradition dictated that I should get the next available cubicle, since everyone else actually had a place and I had, well, a fire hazard blocking an emergency exit.   As you can imagine, chaos insued.  It was decided that the matter would be presented to Ms. Nada our main supervisor for a decision on who rightly deserved the cubicle.

I was actually perfectly happy to stay where I was.  It was much quieter in the corner which would make it easier to get work done, although, I would have liked to have been on the right side of the room instead of the left, since on the left there was a woman whose voice was loud and high pitched enough to be heard through my headphones even four cubicles down.  There was also a large shelf (for book storage, but mostly empty) that I thought would come in handy.  Although, even though these shelves were larger, they didnt lock, which, given the number of thefts that have happened around the office could have ended up being a problem.  So, aside from those few things, I thought my make shift spot was actually pretty perfect.

A few days later, it was announced that Ms. Nada was leaving and that we would have a new dean on the women's side.  She left without making a decision on the cubicles.  Chaos resumed.  So, finally after a lot of compromise, it was decided that the pregnant woman would have the big cubicle, and Luisa would move to the pregnant ladies' cubicle, and I would take Luisa's cubicle.  A few hours later, Luisa came to me to ask if I would switch cubicles with her and take the old pregnant ladies cubicle, so she could stay in her old cubicle. She explained that the lighting was better on this side of the room, and that she wasn't sure she would be back after the summer vacation anyway, so she felt bad taking a nice cubicle and she just wanted to stay put so she didn't have to move again.  I was fine with that.  I would be far from the nanny-voice impersonator, and would have a locked cabinet for my stuff (because everyone wants to steel a ten year old Nokia not smart phone).

Of course, when I started to move into my new new cubicle, the teacher who had been here the second longest informed me that actually, she was going to move into pregnant ladies old cubicle, and did I want to move into her old spot.  That was also fine with me, because it was still on the far side of the room and still came with a locked cabinet.  She told me she didn't want to move all her stuff until right before she left for the summer, so I was back to waiting in my corner.

A few days after that another teacher left for good.  I decided a bird in the hand is worth to in the bush, so before anyone could cause any more confusion, and to avoid the re-shuffling that would no doubt ensue, I took it upon myself to claim her cubicle for myself, rather than wait some more for the one promised me.  I was a little worried that there would be repercussions, arguments, and protests.  Evidently, her cubicle was either not desirable in the least, or no one minded, because nothing was said.  One of the more experienced teachers advised me that the best way to keep a cubicle once you had taken it was to decorate the heck out of it so no one could dispute it wasn't yours.  One of the teachers has gone so far as to line the entire inside of her cubicle with pink paper.  She even has a pink rug and a pink wastebasket.  It's certainly very effective.  I walk by it as quickly as possible, and I don't think I would last five minutes inside of it before the pink pepto-bismol color would make me throw-up.

I decided I didn't need to go that far, but I should probably do something.  The thing is, I don't really have much in the way of decorations.  I considered using some of my tiger stripped duct tape to line the edges of the cubicle, but then I thought it should probably be a little less permanent than that.  Also, duct tape is a precious commodity, I can't be using it just for decoration.  I took my name in Arabic calligraphy from the cultural night, and put it on the outside of my cubicle, along with my quotes from Motivational Monday, so at least there was something.  I was also lucky enough to have gotten a picture of my niece and I in the mail, so I took it off of my refrigerator at home and I stuck it on the inside wall, next to my computer so that I could see it whenever I wanted.  I also found an Arabic flag amongst a pile of old textbooks, so I put that up as well.  Sadly, the few decorations almost make it look more lonely and abandoned than nothing on the walls.  I'm sure I will slowly accumulate more stuff.  I just hope that the game of musical cubicles is finally over so that if I do gather a lot of stuff, I won't have to move it again.