everyone's a little bit.....

There is a musical called "Avenue Q". For those of you lucky to have seen it or Youtube'd their songs, you'll remember the one that goes....

"everyone's just a little bit racist,sometimes. We're all alittle bit racist, if we could all just admit, even just a little bit."

I have been living this song over the past week in regards to hiring our staff. The "big bosses" have decided to limit our racial mix so that our customers feel more "comfortable" shopping in the store. When we started 2 weeks ago with hiring, "Joshpet" and I were planning to recreate the Disney Smallworld ride within our stores. But then the bosses got involved and quickly veto'd the majority of nationalities living/working in Kuwait.

After being given the list of acceptable nationalities (thank god Canada made the list!), it was truly discouraging to have some one turn up and have to send them away not because of their qualification but because they didnt "look" right. I'll admit that several times this week I went to my bosses and vented about how unfair the company was being with great staff I wanted on board. I am usually the crusader of lost causes- this is as lost as Atlantis.

As the week progressed, I noticed I started to make generalizations about people and their nationallity too. For instance, the majority of Lebanese men flirted with me all through the interview (hoping to score more than just the job?), Egyptians use the word "yanny" ALL THE TIME, with Arabs its "inshallah, inshallah", Indian candidates will say anything they think you want to hear in order to get the job, Filipino people were the most serviant, etc.....

I hate myself for thinking these thoughts. I hate that in an interview with, lets say...and Egyptian, I am counting the "yanny's" in my head as the candidate is answering my questions. BTW- highest yanny count is 17 in one interview answer. If I was back in Canada I would have been fired for intentionally stacking my staff in one nationality. Here, the first question we ask a candidate when they apply is "where are you from".

So lessoned learnt- everyone is racist. And at PB/PBK:  diversity is a term best not mentioned at the theme park.