Working hours are long here in Cairo.
It is completely normal to have a Doctor schedule an appointment at 9 or 10pm. That same Doctor will give you his mobile phone number and you can pretty much call it anytime you like.
Lectures of visiting professors and other “people of interest” at the university and other research centers often start at 8 or 9pm.
There is little if any concept of being “off the clock”.
While this can be very handy if you are on the consuming side of these services, it is a royal pain when you are expected to be providing these services.
Students expect teachers to list home and mobile numbers on the syllabus. As well as personal email addresses.
Many instructors here do just that.
A closed office door just means “knock once and then walk in without waiting for acknowledgment.” When I need to work in Kaddee’s office, I lock the door. People will knock and try to enter. Then they will knock again and rattle the door knob.
It is, apparently, incomprehensible that one would lock one’s door while trying to get work done.
So why do I bring this up now? The good doctor was notified, on Sunday, that she was expected to have a presentation ready for Tuesday, to give on Friday at a mandatory faculty retreat.
She will board a bus Friday morning (Friday and Saturday being her days off), ride for 3 hours to a “beach side resort” (on the Suez Canal. Lovely view of tankers). Then spend 2 days in a room giving and listening to presentations.
Then back on the bus to Cairo. Should get home around 10pm Saturday.
Of course, this is the end of the semester, so luckily there aren’t tons of exams, homeworks, lab reports or papers to grade. Or finals to write. Or schedules for next semester to hammer out.
And that whole being prepared for lecture is over-rated anyway.
BUT, it’s all ok, cause they are going to feed her (2 whole meals: dinner Friday, breakfast Saturday. The bus leaves “before dinner time” so they don’t need to feed her then) *AND* she gets to take her spouse. (ahem). So its not like she has any right to complain.
PFers.
Welcome in Egypt.