If you’ve lived in Egypt long enough, you will have become accustomed to a crazy amount of jobs that people hold that do not exist anywhere else in the world.
The problem is, when you get used to the existence of these said jobs, you have a hard time surviving and even getting on with your daily life when abroad, because who’s going to carry my grocery bags to the car in the snow?
Here’s a list of the most absurd jobs we just can’t seem to understand:
The guy who pushes the elevator buttons for you
You step into an elevator and find a man standing there as you ride up to your floor, but his sole job is to press the button for you. Dare you lift your finger and press it yourself – Mr. Elevator Man will scold you!
The guy after the guy at passport control in the airport who checks the stamp that you just got
My passport has been stamped and checked once. I’m pretty sure, Mr. Second Guy, that I haven’t made it this far through the airport without having been stamped initially.
The guy at the supermarket who’s willing to push your cart around and get you the items off your shopping list
I’ll stand here like a princess while you run around the supermarket collecting my shopping list for me!
The sweeper in the street
His sole job is to move one pile of dust from point A to B all day, without actually picking it up and throwing it away.
Egypt’s Road Authority
WHAT DO THEY ACTUALLY DO?
The guy in the government building who’s sole job is to help you stand in line and get a little baksheesh
Need to get in line at any governmental office? Slip the man standing at the door a 10 and he’ll bump you up to the front of the line and even photocopy your papers for you. Who needs to stand in line when you can bribe your way through life, right?
The sneaky security guy at the bank who hands you the numbers for the cue
The even crazier thing is this man actually has a hidden stash of queue numbers that he’ll give you for a little somethin’ somethin’ on the side.
The guy that helps put your bags in the car at the airport
Because I haven’t been hauling them halfway around the world all by myself already and doing a darn good job at it…
The guy who stands at the parking ticket meter to push the button that produces the ticket
Go to City Stars and watch the poor S.O.B. standing there pressing a button to give you your parking ticket, because God forbid you stick your hand out the window.
Ibn El Bawab, he does everything and anything in the building including all the things the bawab has to do!
The sole reason the bawab actually has kids is so that he can sit while his children do his job for him.
The random second guy who stands right next to the cashier in the supermarket repeating the items in front of you to the cashier
Even though the guy at the counter is more than capable of doing this on his own!
The guy who hangs out of the microbuses and yells out all the different destinations
Because having a proper system and destination line as well as a money collection system would just be too complicated.
