Being a freelancer means that you will enjoy lots of things, and of course suffer from bad things, among the benefits is that you get to meet new people all the time, and work on new stuff. This week I had, or should I say almost had, the funniest job meeting/interview in a while.
Last week I applied for a freelance copywriter job opening at a certain company, they called me at 9:20 am last Sunday telling me that I have an interview at 10, I was in the middle of something, I looked like a zombie that time so I needed to shave my face and head, take a shower, check if there is something ready to wear and eventually fly to them.
Sunday 9:20 am
Girl: You have an interview at 10 am
Samer: Can we please make it tomorrow, I can’t make it within 40 minutes and I have 2 meetings today
Gilr: No we can’t
Samer: Ok, thanx
Girl: Anyway let me check and get back to you
Tuesday 9:45 am:
Girl: Hello Samer, where were you yesterday, you were supposed to be here at 11:30 am for the interview
Samer: ha?
Girl: Yes, I called you later on Sunday and informed you about the new date, and you said yes I’ll be there
Samer: ha? Are you sure
Girl: Yes, positive
Samer (saying bad words in his mind): I didn’t get any call from you
Girl: Seems you were sleeping when I called you, anyway you have an interview today at 10:30 am
Samer: Ok I’ll be there
Tuesday 3:30 pm:
Girl: You are late, you were supposed to be here at 3
Samer: No, we agreed on 3:30, and I’m so sure about it
Girl: No, my colleague left a note here saying you are supposed to be here at 3 pm
Samer (smiling): Ok thanx, bye
Tuesday 3:40 pm:
Girl: Samer can you please get back here, the boss is back
Samer: No I can’t, thank you!
So the guy had to go out for lunch and will be 10 minutes late because of the traffic, it’s ok, I can wait a little bit, no need for all this, or it’s because they are an events company they wanted to maintain the image of people who value time.
What could piss oil countries off? Prices? Production? Consumption? Nissan Tiida? A new offensive piece of advertisement for Nissan Tiida triggers the anger of Gulf countries. The new Israeli TV commercial shows Arabs attacking and cursing the car because of its low fuel consumption.
The Arabian Business reports that officials in Saudi Arabia were talking about boycotting the car because of the TVC, personally I felt it’s offensive and stupid, and didn’t make any sense, I mean even if the car consumes less fuel, is it going to make Gulf countries poor? And it’s not like there is an expiry date on oil, it will be used sooner or later.
It reminded me with an ad for Toyota that was done by Saatchi & Saatchi in Poland.
Reviewing the new fuel discount offer by Mazda and Peugeot, the offer will grant you a 33% discount on Octane 95 Fuel for 20,000 km. I was curious to know how much would you save through this offer, now the Peugeot 407 that was featured in the first ad consumes 5.3 liters per 100 km, I did a simple calculation knowing that one liter costs 0.84 JD’s, you will save nothing more than 293.83 JD’s, I don’t think that it’s a really good offer for a car that worths more than 25,000 JD’s, I mean if you are driving 2,000 km a month, you will save 29 JD’s, even if fuel is going up constantly, the difference won’t that much throughout a year.
A first look at Peugeot’s ad gives you an indication that it’s a 50:50 deal because of the two pumps, the visual doesn’t make much sense to me, I guess if they featured a close shot on the pump and added a new field for the discount, so simply it would be gross liter price, discount, net liter price, number of liters, and the total price.
I didn’t really get the Mazda ad, what’s with the three FULL tank signs?
What would drive such a big company like Zain to provide such a small service like web hosting? I mean this service can be perfectly offered by individuals/freelancers and small companies, you can even do it for yourself if you have some technical knowledge.
Look at the prices of their hosting plans, it’s a rip-off, their 100 MB plan is for 250 JDs, of course sales tax will be added, my hosting plan from Hostgator gives me more than 600 GB disk space for 9$/month, 600 GB not MG, that’s like 7 JDs a month, less than 100 JDs a year.
Note: jazarah! welcomes everybody despite their sexual orientations! I mean everybody!
The Jordanian Ministry of Health “took the bold step” when it decided to break the silence about homosexuality in Jordan through conducting a research about numbers of gays and lesbians in the country, and guess how much they found? 20! Boy, Jordan does lack resources I guess the government should enforce rules to protect those 20 people to save diversity in the Jordanian community
Only 20 Jordanians are homosexuals! This is even funnier than AhmadiNejad’s statement when he said: Unlike USA, We don’t have homosexuals in Iran. This number doesn’t seem rational at all, I’m sure there are much much more than this, I mean if the government consider homosexuality a problem, denial is not the right approach to solve it, salvation begins with acknowledgment then applying solutions and perform follow-ups.
I don’t know the tools and methods used by the ministry to conduct this research, but go to couple of places in Amman like Books@Cafe or RGB and you will see tens, if not hundreds. Surf Facebook and you will find even more.
Gulf News published an interesting article about the golden rules for online social networking, these rules were compiled by Debrett’s following a survey conducted by Orange, Debrett’s is a British publisher offering advice on international etiquette, manners, good taste, style and sophistication.
This survey revealed that 66% of social networkers are frustrated and confused by online etiquette, while 25% are uncertain about how to respond to unwelcome pokes or messages.
The golden rules compiled by Debrett’s with Orange are:
1. You don’t have to make friends with people you don’t know. Think before you poke.
2. Wait 24 hours before accepting or removing someone as a friend. The delay will help you gather your thoughts.
3. Birthdays, engagements and weddings are not “virtual” events. Always send cards or phone friends when there is an important event.
4. Think before posting a friend’s photo what you would feel like if it was you.
5. Think carefully about your profile picture. Would you want it to be appearing in your local newspaper?
I would like to add few more rules, compiled by jazarah!
1. Don’t add me unless you really found me interesting enough to be friend with, this is similar to Debrett’s first one, but I really want to highlight it as many people added me to their facebook then removed me, then re-added me, some of those people I don’t even know, so I guess you should make up your mind.
2. Don’t suggest friends.
3. Don’t invite me to every stupid application you use, I don’t want to be your pet, I don’t want to join your mafia war, I don’t want to be a vampire, I’m begging you, stop it.
4. Enough with creating all these pointless groups, since it’s free to do so it doesn’t mean that you can keep creating and inviting people to join more groups about silly things like oh my baby started walking or vote the best smile on facebook.
5. Check before you create an event or a group, some people might done it already, so it’s better to invite people to one entry instead of having five groups for the same issue.
6. Enough poking and let’s just have sex already.
7. Easy on the funwall and the superwall, it’s nice of you to send me cool stuff but don’t over use it.
I guess the government should enforce rules to protect those 20 people to save diversity in the Jordanian community 
