Hi everyone.
Iām on my work computer on the perennially terrible Lebanese internet, in a relatively safe town. Iām talking about some stupid client KPIs in a meeting with a bunch of people around the world. An āimportantā meeting. The clients assume Iām in Dubai or somewhere like that, and I donāt correct them.
Iāll get asked āHow are things in Lebanon?ā by some coworker in Dubai or Europe after the call and Iāll say the classic āAlhamdulillah, my family and I are okay.ā And weāre safe, we havenāt been bombed, not personally. I am lucky to work with decent people, but how could they understand. Will HR give me shit if they learn how much time Iāve spent out and about helping move essentials to shelters in the ādangerous outside worldā instead of just burying myself at home āuntil itās overā? Maybe I can get fired for putting myself in danger. Or maybe they give me leeway as a relatively senior person with the best English in my team who they get to pay less than everyone else because I donāt have a French passport - what a steal! (They pay me okay, and quite well compared to others around me, but we all know what this arrangement really is)
But corporate work, in normal times, rots the soul from the inside out. This is worse. I have to stare at the bad screen for hours while the EMTs dig people from under their homes. I have a duty to at least try to help my people, but I canāt. If I quit my job, my family loses this home and this security, and we have no place to go now that our original town is being bombed. I donāt come from money. I canāt just move or buy a house abroad or even a plane ticket (Lebanese people with no other nationality canāt go many places without a long visa process). I canāt ājust move to Europe broā, I canāt ājust move to Dubai broā. I have responsibilities. Iād love to move, but I canāt. Maybe I should.
Naturally, even nice coworkers cannot comprehend this. Besides, they need my input on the KPIs. This client is very important and number must go up after all. I hear another thud in the distance, through the crickets, I feel it in the pit of my stomach. Not close enough to threaten my life, but close enough to understand I might be next and that no area is truly safe.
This isnāt a woe is me post and I donāt want people in the comments feeling too sorry for my situation yeah. I still have my family, four limbs and two eyes, my home, a source of income in actual usable currency. Save your real sorrow for the people who have lost more both here and in the occupied territories. It could have been me in Gaza, it could have been you.
Please donate to the Lebanese Red Cross if you have the ability. Our people in the orange jumpsuits are our pride and they need everything they can get, especially now that theyāre being hit as well. Relatively transparent and reputable org with boots on the ground and a functional donation platform, please consider helping.
No wonder you didnāt quote it.
You just canāt stop lying can you? Well, i hope its that youāre lying and you parents didnāt spend money on getting you āsome education on (sic) international law at an accredited^^^^tm law schoolā only to get it so spectacularly wrong, while being so far up youāre own ass about it too.
I hope it wasnāt the latter because that would be really embarrassing for you.
Removed by mod
Child, you made up that a a hostile army had to be displaced when you said:
I then quoted the exact part of that regulation you lied about
As can be seen, there is no reference at all to a hostile army having to be displaced for it to be an occupation. So you lied.
Youāre talking shit and you have been the whole time. Its hilarious that you think being utterly proven wrong can be dismissed by claiming the person whoās outsmarted you at every step and proven you wrong is the stupid one here.
If Iām stupid, I dread to think what that makes you.