Benefits

Last week I was made head of our Lahore office - definitely not a promotion and the company pretty much had to beg me to take on the added responsibility. But, in spite of the lack of additional monetary compensation, there are two primary benefits to the new responsibilities. 1) I get a paper delivered to my desk every day. 2) The tea man now brings me a constant stream of tea.

I'm not sure if I've talked about the tea man before, but the position of "tea man" is pretty much a requirement for all Pakistani firms. It's an employment generation scheme which suits the huge disparity in incomes in Pakistan and feeding the egos of the tea recipients. At any rate, every office has at least one man who's sole purpose in life is brewing and delivering tea to the executives. Yes, it's weird, and goes a long way to explaining my landlady's disbelief that I actually know how to boil water (I have a tea man to do that! At the office at least.).