The Hotel Clerk

 

This was sent to me by my dear friend Ms Layla Kubba, 

On a stormy night many years ago, an elderly man and his wife entered the lobby of a small hotel in Philadelphia, USA. The couple approached the front desk hoping to get some shelter for the night.

     
 
“Could you possibly give us a room here?” the husband asked. The clerk, a friendly man with a winning smile, looked at the couple and explained that there were three conventions in town. “All of our rooms are taken”, the clerk said.
 
“But I can’t send a nice couple like you out into the rain at night. Would you perhaps be willing to sleep in my room? It’s not exactly a suite, but it will be good enough to make you folks comfortable for the night.”  When the couple declined, the young man pressed on. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll make out just fine,” the clerk told them.
 
So the couple agreed. As he paid his bill the next morning, the elderly man said to the clerk, “You are the kind of manager who should be the boss of the best hotel. Maybe someday I’ll build one for you.”  The clerk looked at them and smiled. The three of them had a good laugh.
 
As they drove away, the elderly couple agreed that the helpful clerk was indeed exceptional, as finding people who are both friendly and helpful isn’t easy.  Two years passed. The clerk had almost forgotten the incident when he received a letter from the old man. It recalled that stormy night and enclosed a round-trip ticket to New York, asking the young man to pay them a visit. The old man met him in New York, and led him to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.
 
He then pointed to a great new building there, a pale reddish stone structure, with turrets and watchtowers thrusting up to the sky.
 
 

 
“That,” said the old man, “is the hotel I have just built for you to manage." “You must be joking”, the young man said.
 
“I can assure you I am not”, said the old man, a sly smile playing around his mouth. The old man’s name was William Waldorf-Astor, and that magnificent structure was the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
 
The young clerk who became its first manager was George C. Boldt. This young clerk never foresaw the turn of events that would lead him to become the top man of one of the world’s most glamorous hotels.
 

George C. Boldt

Genuine compassion is always rewarded…..sometimes most unexpectedly !!!!

Students that travel and schools that wait for them

Last week one of my students went to Canada to pursue his education, of course this student had so many issues with his visa and what not, so it took us almost 9 months to sort him out.  The day he departed we all jumped up  saying Yaaay, he left; not knowing of course what is in store for us.

My phone rang at 3:30 AM, and then at 3:35, 3:37, and so on, and I keep on switching it off thinking that a mad man is trying to ring me, and my grandson was restless, so I put the phone on silence.  In the morning, I found out that it was the father of the student who was calling!  well, at that time the student is still on the plane, he lands about couple of hours after that. So why did the father called that many times? I wondered?

I asked the father what happened and why was he calling so early? he said that he freaked out, and the mother freaked him out even more.  Then I checked my emails, and it seems that he had rung the Homestay emergency number at 3:31 pm and at every odd minute after that, at least in Canada they were in the afternoon, so no worries of waking anyone out!!  the homestay people reassured him and told him that they will let the son call as soon as he arrives, which they did.  However, that didn't help as the son went home afterwards, and of course being jetlagged, he must have fallen asleep, so the father for few days was so worked up, thinking that the son is missing or being kidnapped and so on. 

I am not blaming the father here, as its understandable, I am blaming the homestay company, and the student.  First, the student should ensure that he has enough battery life on his phone to tell his parents that he had arrived and safe. Secondly, the homestay company should have whatsapp or any of those free social media stuff that are growing by the minute on their phone to communicate with the parents that all is good.  Of course I blame myself as I didnt know that the father is a control freak, and the mother is so attached to her baby boy, so I didnt take precautions to prevent me from waking up late at night (such as switching the phone off!). 

The reader of this blog will think that I am selfish, thinking only of myself, believe me I am not selfish, I understand what went through the parents' minds, staying up the whole night! waiting for their child who had never travelled in his life to reach an unknown land, so we need a good solution, for this, help!

Accrediting universities and programmes

This is a hell of a job, ask me, I have worked in this field for a while and saw firsthand what the proposers of new universities or new programmes at an already established universities go through in order to get the programme/university going.  The whole thing starts with an idea, like any new type of business, but businesses do not go through the sorts of bureaucracy that universities and majors go through! Maybe its academia, maybe it’s because everyone is worried about the kids that will go through these universities or study that major, and maybe its just a way to procrastinate things so the idea will at the end die.  However with over 10000 universities in the world I guess good ideas do not die that easily. 

Anyway, after going through all the details and establishing the ins and outs of the programme, the universities have to submit documents to the council of education in its country, and then to the ministry, and only after it fulfills all the requirements from staff hiring, to facility, to dorms, library, playgrounds, etc that it can start its work and enrolls students.  Then it gets checked bi-annually by the accrediting team of the various councils, Vice chancellors and what not, and before you know it, the university will also be the subject of accreditation in other countries, as all universities hope for diversification in terms of student body and professors.  And to reach the rank, the university needs to have research, and that too lots of research that is published in international journals. 

Ranking is the most difficult task, of course, and it is not easy, as it gets even more difficult by the day as we the educator find new criteria to rank the university by, for example peer review, and students’ opinion have just become a new parameter to rank universities with, not just how much research it has, or how diversified the university’s student body is.  So, for those that want to enter a university and want to know its rank, must first ensure why that university is number one, and if that suits the personality of that student or not.

Many countries have lists of approved universities on their websites, so the students of that country have it easy when they want to look for a place to study.  In Bahrain, we do not have this system, instead, the ministry of education depends on neighboring countries’ websites and advice students accordingly.  I think our ministry had forgotten that we started the education system before any other gulf country, and its them who must look up to us and not vice versa.  Bahrain has an abundance of intellect and of people that have a long time in Academia, so we can do this work ourselves and never to depend on others.  Saudi for example removes universities or blocks them for oversubscribed numbers of Saudi students, so if a university is approved today, and our ministry tells the student this fact, and tomorrow the university is blocked by Saudi, what will our student do? Will the ministry approve his or her degree?

We want our own system of evaluation instead of depending on some other system that had been established to suit the purpose of that country only; depending on anyone else to tell us which university to study in is an easy way out. 

We can evaluate universities by going through the sites of the various ministries of education in the various countries to see if the universities in those countries are approved or not; this is the simplest way to go.  The other way is to have an office at the ministry or the cultural attaché offices abroad that receives the dossiers of the universities and evaluates them.  That way our students are safe and will study with ease.

Social media poem

Retaliation

I have 2000 friends on Facebook and 3000 on Whatsapp

My friends love me and wait for my Chatsnap

When I don’t send them messages or pictures on social app

They call me to inquire and ask me: what’s up?

I love the new techs as its better than before

When I used to send them letters and hope it will reach the shore

Stale news are boring and sometimes make me snore

But that was how we linked and communicated when we went to explore

And don’t let me tell you about the telephone and how it was so uncanny

It yanked, it cracked and it made noises that where funny

People had to shout to make their voices reach the other side that was sunny

Your throats would be sore and you would need to drink some honey

The third thing we had is a stupid fax machine

The courts accepted it but for the environment it was not so clean

We were amazed by it so we would leave to work in it and go to the canteen

But we could never store the work and the cost was obscene

I would rather have a machine that records my every movement every memory every thought

To tell the news to my family and friends as fast as a shot

I don’t want them to be waiting and for my news to rot

As otherwise I have to chill and hang around more often than not

Life had a rhythm but not like a symphony

Nowadays though life is fast in my ears its better than do ray me

Seeing the old mobile makes me laugh about the company

About the person that holds it and about the irony

They avoid technology thinking it disturbs them

They forgot that it brought us together and stitched us like a hem

Living without technology will leave us at the rim

And will separate our surrounding exactly as a brim

We can do our work and teach the world at once

We can record our sayings, our thinking, and our stunts

We reach out to children on the other side of the fence

We know we do no harm and we will not do an offense

Each one of us races to send the smartest message

To enlighten someone’s day and to shorten the passage

We wait for every like as we are trying to engage

And we smile when someone send us a full page

Social media is not the problem, its how we use it

Like everything else in life we tend to abuse it

We cannot blame it for our loneliness and try to orchestrate,

A mission to dismantle facebook, twitter, linkedin with your inmate

We cannot blame social media for our loneliness and despair

We must find a smarter way and hope to repair

Life is fantastic without thinking “beware”

Don’t go against social media and lets keep it fair and square

Post your films and photos and hope for more likes

I know it gives me the goose pumps and it takes me on various hikes

When someone I knew in time when we used to ride the bikes

Checks my pages , share, like, comments or strikes