Teddy Wayne: Kapitoil

“ This data,” he says. I merely nod again.

I return to my pod and try not to think about the potential success of my program, because it is unhealthy to speculate before it has even been accepted, but whenever I make an advance in my career I recall what my mother said to me once when she was in the hospital. It must have been a few months after I turned 12, because she was not yet attached to the machine that breathed for her and was still strong enough to talk for long periods of time. Also, they still permitted Zahira to visit her. At the end my parents decided Zahira shouldn’t see her in that condition, so only my father and I went and she stayed with our aunt and uncle. After our visits, he always exited to their bedroom alone and closed the door, and I had to tell Zahira about the visit. The doctors advised me to lie to her and say that our mother merely had to go away for a long time, and although possibly that lie would have protected Zahira’s feelings more, that is one area of life people should never lie about. In addition, she was very smart even then and understood what was happening.

But I remember Zahira was there, because she had to use the restroom, and my father left my mother’s room with her to find a nurse. When the door closed behind them, my mother sat up in the bed. I thought she was going to ask me to retrieve her some water, as she frequently did. But she said, “Karim, if I ask you to promise me something, will you always honor it?”

I moved around in my chair and wished a nurse would return, but I said yes.

“When I—” she said. “I want you to take care of Zahira.”

“I always take care of her,” I said.

She shook her head. “I want you to be the one who takes care of her. You . Do you understand?”

I quickly looked at the closed door. “I understand,” I said.

“And although you may not see why now, I also want you to look after your father,” she said.

I said I understood again, but I didn’t 100 %. Then my father returned and we discussed something else.

Zahira is fortunate to grow up as a female now in Qatar instead of one or two decades ago, but if she lacks sufficient funds then it limits her options, and I will not be honoring my promise to my mother.

antioxidants = substances that restrict cancer; found in juice

higher-up = superior in a pyramidal hierarchy

juicer = device that produces juice

Karim-esque = representative of Karim

littered with = filled with

On Thursday I am nervous to ask Jefferson if he has heard from his contact in quants, and he does not mention it or email me about it. At the end of the day he and Dan discuss where to go that night.

“What’s wrong with Haven?” Dan asks.

“The patrons are morons,” Jefferson says. “And ugly, to boot.”

Dan deposits one hand in his pocket and pets the back of his head with the other. “Fine, we’ll go to Scorch.” He detects me looking at them, which is impolite of me, but when they are conversing so loudly it is natural to pay attention. “We only have space for a couple of guys on the list. But we’ll get you another time.”

After they leave, Rebecca focuses on her monitor while she speaks to me. “You’re not missing out on anything, by the way,” she says. “They’re hoping some vapid Alpha Phis will be impressed by the fact that they spent $400 for a bottle of vodka and two seats at a table in a room full of date-rapists.”

I do not want to spend $400 on seats, but there are some areas of life I would like to observe in New York that are challenging to experience in Doha, e.g., alcohol and females. The few times I have gone with my coworkers and foreign businessmen to hotel nightclubs where they serve alcohol, I restrict myself to a maximum of one drink, although my coworkers consume more than that, and they dance with foreign females and sometimes leave with them. Three months ago a female banker from Jordan sat next to me as I ordered my drink. After we talked briefly about her work, she moved slightly closer to me and said, “I am staying in the hotel by myself for three nights.”

Her face was highly symmetrical, and under her business suit her body had a pleasing shape, and she smelled like a garden. But she was two years younger than I was, and I could not stop considering that she was someone’s daughter, or possibly sister, and I negated the temptation. To be polite I bought her drinks for the duration of the night, and before I left I told her I found her insights into the cultural contrasts between Jordan and Qatar intriguing, especially about how the two countries treat females (Jordan is more advanced, although I noted that Qatari females do possess some rights that are forbidden in many countries in the Middle East, e.g., driving).

My Doha coworkers never discuss these nights afterward, which is unlike Jefferson and Dan, who frequently enter the office in the morning and analyze their actions from the previous night as if it were a sports event. Typically Jefferson succeeds and Dan fails.

On Friday afternoon Jefferson still has not said anything to me about the program, and I cannot wait any longer and email him even though he is next to me. He replies:

Sorry, I meant to shoot you an email before. They said they already have similar programs that outperform the market by 3–4%, so they’re going to pass. Better luck next time?

I stare at the monitor until all the words become blended. I do not know why I thought I could write a program that is more advanced than what workers with MBAs and advanced computer science degrees and broader experience can produce. I am merely self-taught and without a true university education and have only one year of experience at Schrub. It was a waste of energy.

I also will now look foolish when Zahira asks me about the project.

On Saturday I do not know what to do with myself, as I do not feel like programming because I have no new ideas, and my ideas are inferior and unoriginal anyway. Therefore, I go to the office, because at least I can be productive there, as my work does not require any creativity and it is the solitary role I can be efficient in.

The WTC is peaceful when I enter. There is no receptionist, but a few coworkers whose names I do not know are in the office. So is Rebecca.

She explains she missed some work recently because she was out of town and is compensating by logging extra hours today.

“Where did you go?” I ask, but then I regret it because I do not want to be too investigative and sometimes people have private reasons.

She says she visited her brother David at a university I have not heard of in the state of Missouri. “It’s his first year, and he’s sort of having a rough time.”

“Is that where you attended university?”

“That’s what it says on my student loans,” she says. “Well, technically, it doesn’t actually say the name.”

Tuition in Doha is comparatively inexpensive, and since I did not attend authentic university my education was even more discounted. “I am glad that Zahira will not be indebted,” I say. Rebecca does not respond, so I ask, “Do your parents live in Missouri?”

She opens up a spreadsheet and begins entering data. “My mother lives in Wisconsin, a few hours away,” she says. I do not ask where her father lives.

In the early afternoon Rebecca invites me to partner with her for a coffee break. The coffee in the office is free, but it is not high quality, so we leave the building and locate a nearby Starbucks.

We do not converse much in the elevator or as we walk to the Starbucks or on line for the coffee vendor, even though we have to brainstorm frequently about programming roadblocks when we labor. I am a strong communicator in team situations for problem solving, but I am not as expert in conversing about nonproblems, and I think Rebecca is also deficient in this area. Jefferson has mastery over it and modifies his conversation when he networks in the office. I can converse merely in one mode, which is a skill set I must enhance to grow as a business leader.