The long awaited...

The long-awaited, long-anticipated (and perhaps, highly enlightening, or more likely, disappointing) post on Jobs in Cairo. (BTW 'cause this is a long post, note that there is another new one below it. That post is more about me, so choose your poison.)

Okay so here’s the disclaimer. This post isn’t going to be based on statistics, numbers, research, or anything else that lends any scientific credence to it. So off the top, be wary of taking too much from anything you read. This post is based on my observations in extremely limited setting, and based on biases and predispositions inherent in my world view. Indeed I recognize the inherent problem in this, and also the chance that I’m going to say some dumb stuff so anyone who has information on this, feel free to point out mistakes or correct any assumptions you like. AND forgive my sensationalism. Because I’m a bit ashamed of the parts of this blog that are too sensational in that regard.

That being said, here’s the deal. This post (perhaps there will be most, I don’t know – these things have a bit of a mind of their own) will be concerned with 2 main concepts, which are intrinsically tied together: Population and Transportation.

Quite simply, there are too many people in this city. It is jam-packed. There aren’t enough jobs for everyone. This makes finding any job at all quite difficult and finding good jobs extremely difficult. The more education you have the better you are to find jobs, but even having lots of education doesn’t guarantee you anything, and you’re certainly not necessary to find something in your field. Now, of course I have to note that indeed this is true of jobs anywhere in the world. But it seems to be on a larger scale than that of Canada.

The other thing about over-crowding is the extreme stress on transportation. I’ve already mentioned to you about the problem with traffic. That in itself is a huge issue and of course it is a multi-faceted problem, but one of the key points is simply the overabundance of people wanting to go somewhere. The result of that is you’ve got so many cars, taxi’s and buses that the streets are usually filled to the brim with vehicles.

So one thing about jobs here, is that for the above reasons, plus for simple cultural reasons that are not readily explained out, in Cairo, you’ll find the existence of a host of jobs that are not present, or at least not common in say most Western cultures. Or if you find it in both places, there is a disproportion to what I’m used to.

Parking guy. This is the guy that helps you park on the street, when you’re out somewhere, visiting some place. Because there are so many cars and such little space, parking spots are commodities. This guy directs you to the spot, then helps guide you into it, because the spot is guaranteed to be about 10cm larger than the smallest physically possible space to put a car into. You pay this guy about 1 or 2 pounds when you come back to your car to leave. They may also clean your car.

Garage attendant. If you live in an apartment, a similar job exists for people who care for the parking garage of your building. Here, this group of guys (for the attendant is a 24, 7days a week kind of job) are paid out the monthly fee you pay to keep your car in the garage. Of course, they also clean your car, and look after the place to ensure the safety of the garage. But when I talk about crowding, you still don’t understand…

Cars on the street and in the garage are not parked like here. In Canada, you park in such a spot that you can get out, and so can everyone else. Here, not so. Impossible because there aren’t enough spots, and unnecessary because of the parking guys. Thus, cars are in many places double and even triple parked, and in the garage, many more cars fit that would be possible by each person parking his own car.

Thus, the job description of the above includes this work: moving cars around so that more cars fit, and people can go in and out when they come and go based on their schedule. Most cars here are standard shift. Thus, when you arrive home from work, you bring your car into the garage, and leave it somewhere central, in neutral, with no parking brake on. This allows the parking guys to move cars around to fit more cars into the same space. When you leave the next morning, you ask the parking guy where your car is. It has been moved, once or more than once to accommodate the coming and going of others who also keep cars in the garage. Hopefully, the garage attendants are good and the way of your exit is unimpeded by other cars. If you are leaving at a non-standard time (i.e. not a regular time based on your schedule), it is a good idea to phone down to the garage to have them move your car, so that they can have it ready. If you know when you’re going out next, it’s a good idea to tell them, for the same reason. It’s especially interesting to watch when cars are double parked tightly and your on the inside.

The idea is very simple, but since you never saw it in action, and I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it when I came, I used a lot of words to describe it.

Public Transportation. As I mentioned, transportation makes up a huge part of this job discussion. Indeed, I think many people are employed in the transportation sector. This involves 2 main classes of jobs – taxis, and buses.

Taxis are everywhere here. Seriously. At any given time when I’m walking down the street, (I’m guessing here but) 1 out of every 4 cars that drives by me is a taxi. And taxis come in a variety of shapes and conditions, but they’re almost exclusively black with white on the body over the wheels and most of them are old and in rough condition. Taxi’s here are quite cheap. And you have to know the price you’ll pay (of course there is no meter, don’t be silly). If you ask – especially as a foreigner, he will tell you a much higher number than usual. So in this case, you just know from family or friends who live in the area the appropriate price. When I arrive, I get out the taxi then hand the money through the window. And usually he’s moderately happy, sometimes quite happy and sometimes upset. How you deal with that depends on the situation but I won’t get into it.

Next, there are tonnes of buses and microbuses. I’ll save that for next time, because, well, this is enough for now.