Check please… Really

A week ago, I was having lunch at a restaurant in Beirut. When done, I call up the waiter for the check using the universally recognized gesture of the raised hand and two fingers simulating writing… The guy got me a pen!

I appreciate hiring amateur students and what have you as waiters to make some extra bucks. What I don’t like is when the outlet management is more amateur than those they hire!

Oh, I understand. With the riches in which Lebanon basks, like oil, gas, industry, export and others, hospitality is a detail… I mean, why would we need to invest in that industry as if it was our sole source of decent income!

HELLOOOOOOOO!

Our beloved Minister of Tourism shows up on TV desperately and pathetically defending himself over the Gemmayzeh Decibel level. How about he gets busy solving the rising moronic level of the hospitality industry! How about we lay some simple, easy to understand, rules that govern how outlets hire front office staff? How about we ask for a minimum of knowledge from a Lebanese applying for a waiter job, like… mum… say speak Arabic?? Or smile? Or know that a raised hand and two fingers simulating writing means “Check please”?… Really?!

We excel at one more thing in this country: The fast buck! We think that a nice logo, outdoor sign and a totally stupid smile at the door is enough to generate a pleasant experience.

Well let me tell you, if this is what people are looking for, I would open a “restaurant” made out of two doors back to back, one entry and one exit,m with a great logo, a wonderful sign and a smiling babe greeting you. You pay, and get the hell out through the second door right away! How about that for an experience? Hein??

Idiots! An experience includes the orgasm!!!!

Yes, I like a good brand. Yes, a visible sign would help. The smile at the door? Priceless… but… Have you ever heard of “service”, “quality”? AND, the raised hand and two fingers simulating writing that means “check please”?… Really??

For many of those idiots who misread my third paragraph above, put your shades on cave bats, I’m going to shed some light on the facts:

NO, we do not have oil,

NO, we do not have gas,

NO, we do not have industries,

NO, we do not have exports… well yeah, people, but that’s another chapter.

All we have are politicians, not much to put a country’s goodwill out. We also have “citizens” who don’t even know how to draw their own country’s flag. Thank God we don’t carry the Brazilian flag; we deserve the Libyan one! And.. we have tourism and hospitality.

Now, let’s see. Tourism; the country where you can ski and swim at the same time… Yeah, and no one ever asked why?! Simple, because by the time you leave Faraya in December heading for the beach, you’re guaranteed to get there by June! Tourism is not an industry in Lebanon. It is as archeological as archeology itself. Haphazard lame advertising campaigns promoting “what we sell” instead of who we are. Tourism is not about sea, sand and sun (and sex). It is not about archeology. It is not about food. It is about IDENTITY. Now you tell me, what is our identity? The one we need to sell to create our touristic platform? Name online please… I dare you!

Hospitality? I guess that the problems lies deep within our knowledge of the language. No schmucks! Hospitality has got nothing to do with hospitals! Is that why we’re selling Lebanon as the prime destination for cosmetic surgery??! Is it?

What happened to Raoucheh, Jeita grotto, Beiteddine, Rabbits’ islands, Maameltein… Oops! Sorry, we all know what happened to this one! Another linguistic misunderstanding, we actually thought that “warm welcome” meant “reaaaally” warm… Thank God we did not word it in typical Lebanese “hot welcome”…

So, we’re left with Downtown, Gemmayzeh, nightlife, belly buttons, (fake) boobs, in-your-face sweaty arm pits and some 60’s smiling faces.

Reality is that underneath this layer, hides a crave… “My” crave to be able to call a place “my” country, be able to describe it in 2 words instead of a dissertation that gets into the existentialist reasoning of war stigmatized citizens.

I have a crave to talk about this place without having to insert the word Zionist, or “Amrica al shaytan”, or Syria the occupier, or International tribunal, or Northern Emirate, or security belt, or Solidere, or UNIFIL or trees…

I have a crave to stop calling this place “this place” and start calling it home…

Until then, please give a decent place to eat, a pleasant corniche to walk at, a “free” beach to watch the sunset, or an archeological site that does not come with beads sellers, Sudanese nuts and begging gypsies. Can you? Can you do that at least?

Oh, and please, kindly remember, a raised hand and two fingers simulating writing means “Check please”… Really.

I don’t think, therefore I am!

Since I came back to Lebanon from the Gulf back in 1999, everyone is puzzled over how I do not belong to any political party, movement, current or any form of political belief, and how I despise them all. They keep telling me that it is physically impossible to live here and not be some kind of a follower.

And my answer is simple: I don’t “live” here, I “stay” here!

I have lost all sense of patriotism, at least the notion of patriotism as described over here, not the real, the pure form of patriotism. Unfortunately, that form of patriotism is not practiced anymore. Hate me if you wish, I don’t give a flip!

I lost my patriotism when I left Lebanon back in 1986. Before that, I used to get very tempting offers to leave and go work in the Gulf. I always said no. I always believed there was a hope and that the country, my Mother Land will prevail. What a fool I was!

I lost my patriotism because patriotism came to mean only one thing n Lebanon: Follower. If you follow some single-minded, under-educated, over-rated and totally spineless politician, then you’re a patriot; but if you don’t you must an agent of some super power!

I refuse to take part in a pavlovian experiment. I refuse to be told what to do, feel or think. I refuse to be conditioned. I refuse to be taught about the love of a country. I refuse to be categorized. I refuse to be assimilated by some collective consciousness guided by brainless individuals.

Am I rebel? Hell yes!

But then again, name me one rebel among our politicians… And please, for a change, think before you answer!

The dictionary describes a rebel as “a person who resists authority, control, or convention.”

I live on another planet, where there are no politicians, no politics, no causes, no parties, no movements, no resistance, no governments, no speeches, and no dogs drooling over the ring of a bell!

I had this dream: Two towns far, far away in some remote area, where no vehicle could drive and no human could walk. One of the towns is called “Aïn-Wazir” and the other is called “Kfar-Nouweb”. The former will house all of the ministers and the latter all the deputies. They will live their middle ages at leisure, fight, insult each other, do whatever they wish, but out of sight! And those who love the scene can follow!

I don’t think anymore. Instead, I dream. Thinking does not help. Dreaming gets me in a trance where politicians and politics are gone, and the country is doing great and I’m a patriot again.

John Lennon may have been high all the time, but he sure was right!

This is Lebanon. To be, you have to stop thinking. Your president must be a Maronite, your prime minister a Sunni and your head of parliament a Shia… Same applies to all public positions within the government. They don’t have to be educated, they don’t have to be experienced, they don’t have to be knowledgeable. All they have to be is from the right religion at the right time!

And you want me to be a patriot?!

Sorry JFK, but I will have to swap the words in your famous statement. When it comes to Lebanon, and after over 30 years of pain and 350.000 “real” martyrs, it should read like that:

“Ask not what you have done for your country. Ask what your country has done for you!”

Are local TV stations watching TV?

We live in a spectators country! Every one is a spectator, the citizens, the politicians, and now TVs! There has never been a time in Lebanese history where any TV station has reached such a level of decadence be it in form or content.

With the advent of the online experience, I was expecting TV stations to be a little more creative (yeah, yeah, I know I’m asking too much but it’s worth a shot)! When international broadcast stations are re-inventing the way they deliver news and entertainment; back here we invent news ways of copying logos, formats and content. Plagiarism has turned into an elaborate science. Hey! At least we’re good at something!

I remember the good old days when Télé-Liban used to broadcast home-grown programming. Back then we had amazing Lebanese actors who made regional TV history. They are starving today, they’re dying in misery! We had journalists, real ones who became mesmerizing anchors. We had beautiful announcers’ faces, carved by nature and not by plastic surgeons. Color, 3D, HD and all that crap was never the issue.  It was about a word that has now entered the realm of oblivion: Talent.

News. In yesteryear it about news. Today it’s about the race for scoops. I wonder what they will do next… Hire a posse to kill someone just to earn the prime time news scoop?!

Lebanon has proven that it excels at one and only one thing, regression. We lead the Internet revolution then we trail behind. We create democracy in a dictatorship-laden region and then reinvent dictatorship. And now, after pioneering the broadcast history in Lebanon, we become history…

I think our local TV stations got the word “flavor” from the tail. Helloo! When we said flavors we meant programming… Not colors morons! Blue, yellow, green are not flavors… and certainly not orange!

What happened to the good old days when brains use to drive the broadcast industry? What happened to “Lebanese” speaking programs? What happened to the real depiction of the Lebanese society? Oh we still have those you say? Ah ok! The news. Yeah I totally forgot about that daily folkloric manifestation of our society where a stupendous amalgam of show-off occurs.

There’s the TV station trying to brag about a scoop (that we all read about on the internet in the morning and already tweeted a gazillion times!).

Then there’s the party or parties “behind” the TV trying to beam “subtle” messages between the already “obviously” messaged lines.

Then there’s the anchor, and oh what a staged dramatic comedy that is! They don’t train them anymore to deliver the news in a professional objective way. They get trained instead on displaying facial expressions that match the story they’re “reading” off the tele-prompter, in an attempt to immerse us in “their” truth. Speaking of truth, we’re probably the country that invented the “plural” of Truth… right after the alphabet! Since our beloved anchors are training,  I advise they get some basic grammar training while they’re at it…

Finally there are the guests and the footage. I guess that’s why we don’t produce any programs anymore… I mean, who would want to invest in producing a sitcom or series when we can get it for free with just a camera off the street… or the house of parliament?!

I am outraged!

Look at what we’re teaching our children.

Look at what we’re telling the world about us.

Look at what we’re leaving in our archive cellars for the future generations.

Look at what we’ve done to our voice,
our opinion,
our independence,
our democracy,
our cause…

 

We became an HMV outlet! (His Master’s Voice).

We’ve perfectly applied the joke of “when I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you”.

We’s removed the “in” off our “independence” between two commercial breaks.

We turned our democracy into the perfect camouflage fabric to hide our shameful dictatorships and feudalism.

And our cause? I never knew we actually had any until those bozos starting creating ones left and right and establishing TV stations to promote them!!

I guess now, we should play the National Anthem, right?

BRANDING FRIENDSHIP

We keep hearing about “personal branding”. This is fine… so far. But when you really ponder upon the subject, you will discover that  a “person” is a relative entity which actually a part of the many. Which leads to an intriguing thought: Our individuality is conditioned by our integration within the mass. So in other words, a person is a person when it is an intrinsic part of a group of persons.

Wao! I had to read three times what I just wrote to grasp it!

So, if you ask me (and yes, I know you are), our definition, perception and evaluation of a person is dictated by the environment in which that person thrives at large, but most importantly by the small circles within which that person engages in interaction. And those circles usually are family, friends, and work.

I will focus on friends for a simple reason. Family is a conditioner. Since we’re born within a family, we spend the first 18 years of our lives being conditioned by our parents, family sociocultural inheritance and the safe haven they provides. So there, we have a little leeway to maneuver. Comes work, and there again, most of our behavior and person(ality) are “dictated by the amount of will we harness to progress our career, kiss the boss’s ass (or the receptionist’s…), earn a raise, or see our opponents drop.

With friends, on the other hand, we simply blossom. Our choice of friends is a very intricate strategy, happening most of the times in the depth of our subconscious, yet complex enough to explore. Yeah, I know, it’s getting ugly.

Our awareness about our own image or brand is an important factor in choosing friends. A friend has to enhance some aspect of our own brand. Depending on how smart (or lame) you are, you choose your friends to boost specific aspects of that brand of yours. You hang out with the jet-setter or the trendsetter, the geek because he or she expands your knowledge base or the weak because they help you shine. Yeah, yeah, you love your friends, I know. What you don’t know is “why”!

Why do you love a friend? Pick one right now and describe why you love him or her. You will end up stating their qualities, the ones that “you” like about them, the ones that you feel fit your image, personality and character. In other words, that person is “fit” to be your friend. It fulfills a specific purpose, it’s a link in your chain of self-branding. Mind you, you’re the same to your friends.

So next time, you find yourself engaging in the friendship ritual with another person, try to reflect on what that person represents to you and what you represent to him or her. This will be a wonderful way to understand the importance of a balanced chemistry between bot of you.

At the end, you will be labeled as a group or a bunch (or a posse), even sometimes a couple (no, not as in an item) and you will enjoy the bliss of the friendship brand. You will be safe inside that brand. You will be protected by the others, giving you the range to screw up from time to time and not be noticed. Because, once the friendship brand prevails, you, the “person” become part of a bigger scheme, where what makes you who you are perceived to be, is not how you act, but how your action integrates with the collective behavior of your bunch.

If today’s organizations realized the power of friendship branding, they would be in control of a powerful social weapon. Few (if any) organizations understand the true nature and power of friendship. But are they to blame? So many of us have yet to grasp it ourselves…

At the end, the same way we, as people, need to understand the science behind friendship to make the best of it, organizations have yet to understand the friendship behind the science to win their customers hearts.

©2010 – Ibrahim Lahoud