u/Environmental-Cod25

On the way to college, I stopped in the street to take a call from a place where I had been interviewed the day before. I was chatting away (yay, got the job) about the start day (I had to delay until later next week to get a couple of things done) when an angry guy in lycra walks up to me and shoves me (not hard, but it was quite a shock, so I stepped back).

I am trying not to sound crazy on the phone to my new boss and shaking my head at lycra guy. He's smaller than me, yellow and black lycra, helmet that makes his head look like an Alien from Aliens. Smooth, elongated.

I am trying to wave at this guy, but he's shouting at me. Just behind me is a street light with a bike leaning against it. He pushes me out of the way and I'm still on the phone, trying to end the call without sounding mental.

For a moment, I figured that I had accidentally leaned against his goddam bike, but no, I am at least a foot away.

Lycra guy is shouting now - this actually saves me - I tell my new boss that there is too much noise and I will call him later - he hears the rumpus and agrees, so I hang up.

'What the hell is wrong with you?' Lycra Guy now shouts

'What TF - why are you pushing me?'

'You tried to steal my bike'.

I am struggling to explain that I was on the phone and WHY would I take a call if I was in the middle of a theft?

'Where's the lock?' This is now what he is fixated on, because apparently it cost a couple of hundred bucks. Lycra Guy is now calling the police.

I would have walked away but I didn't want to get into trouble for trying to evade the 5-0 (it does not help that I am black and he is white).

So, I am still trying to explain and we wait. He's standing close, like I will run. I keep asking him where my tools are, where I've thrown this lock that he think I've broken. I tell him I was talking to my new boss. Nothing.

A couple of mins later, he unshoulders his rucksack and goes into for something - and finds his stupid lock.

He pulls it out. We look at the bike without a lock. We look at the lock. Then back to the bike.

He just gets onto the bike, tells me to move out of the way and rides off.

Not a word of anything.

I am amazed by the differences between branches of Liberty Books.

The one at Dolmen Mall has attentive staff and, more importantly, the books are arranged in a sensible order - you can actually browse and find stuff.

The one at Boat Basin (next to BBG Tonight) is appalling. The books are rammed into shelves in such poor order that you cannot really find anything; there are a couple of very young people to help, but they know nothing about books. The two middle aged guys at the counter (always the same two), sit and chat to each other and you have to interrupt them to ask for advice. The shop is in such a bad state but the two older people that should know something about books just do nothing. I've even asked them directly about it and they just shrug.

Salaam, I am looking for a small group of Arabic speakers who can also speak English for some language tasks. This would be a part time role for those that want to earn by speaking!

DM for more details.

It's a mix, depending on what I need (please note that where I say I do not work with Pakistanis, this is not a matter of choice, but because I do try to hire locally but normally fail because they have hard skills but always lack the soft skills. I did find a small consultancy in Islamabad to help me once, then they decided to go on holiday for a fortnight and not even leave an out of office message, so I wasted 3 days waiting for a reply then went with an Indian supplier).

- Data compliance specialists (usually $300-500/day) but must have global certifications and be fluent in Arabic and English.

- Graphic designers for small jobs, like making a single image, perhaps $10, for longer work that requires little skill, $3/hr. Skilled jobs can command $20/hr.

- Website designers and developers - this depends on the work. I don't work with Pakistanis (my web dev is Pakistani and manages the website well - he is great, but he sucks at design)

- Business development - usually pay about $10/hr plus commissions (which can run into thousands of dollars) - again, do not work with Pakistanis generally (when I was interviewing, I shortlisted 6 people. 4 Did not bother to attend the interview (3 got in touch hours or days later telling me about an emergency - no doubt one of them was telling the truth, but I am so bored of these emergencies that mean they cannot notify me that they are not coming. When my father died, within an hour, I put an out of office message on and spent 10 mins writing a blanket email to all my clients explaining what had happened, saying that I would be incommunicado for 72 hours). The person I like the most is a Pakistani living in the Gulf. He seems great.

- Excel specialists who can do VBA (price depends on the job)

- CRM management and configuration (price depends on the job)

- Call centre people who speak Urdu (pay around 3-4k/day)

- Social media people (I pay 1k/post designed in Canva, 25 posts per month)

- SEO specialist (part time, $100/month, about 3hrs a week)

- Accountants - usually get someone who understands KSA and UK and Pak requirements on Fiverr - usually costs $100-$200 for annual accounts.

Etc, etc...

Leaving aside the first category, I burn through Rs300k/month - but perhaps Rs100k is paid in Pakistan, the country where I live half the year!

Pakistan has internet problems. People get involved in accidents. Emergencies arise. I get that.

Because it is local to me for several months of the year when I live here, because I am likely to get a better deal in terms of pay, I try to hire in Pakistan - but it appears that I do not know how to.

About 50% of the hires that I make I try to make in Pakistan - the other 50% I cannot do locally because the specialism that I seek does not exist here.

Of the hires that I try to make in Pakistan, I have scheduled 138 interviews in the last 6 years (I have a spreadsheet).

These are typically short term or part time gigs, everything from graphic design to business development, technical SEO for a website, VBA for a spreadsheet, AI dev for small apps, company accounts, etc.

As my company earns in hard currencies, I usually pay well - I do expect a good deal, but specialists should make at least $5-$10 per hour for short tasks. I will pay graphic design people $3/hr for simple tasks or longer tasks that might take 20 hours.

My admin support is on PKR40k/ month for 10 hours a week.

Pakistani candidate just habitually ghost me - even when they put something out on Reddit or LinkedIn saying that they are desperate for work.

The data from my spreadsheet is:

Hires: 6/138

People who do not turn up to the interview after agreeing it: 87

People who turn up late: 44

People who turn up late and do not apologise or mention the tardiness: 39

People who do not accept calendar invitations (confirming that they got the invite): did not collect data on this, but accepting invitation seems to be the exception - this is so unprofessional

I am not sure where I am going wrong - when I hire from the Philippines, I do not have this problem - and it is worth me paying extra in money transfer fees to send the money there. They do not have more technical skills than in Pakistan - it is the soft skills that appear to be killing so much of the Pakistani market.

I am going to end up giving up on hiring in Pakistan at this rate. But I don't want to do this.

Just this morning, I was scheduled to speak with a business dev person who posted on Reddit yesterday looking for a role - I messaged yesterday, she shared her CV and LI and today at the scheduled time? No show, no message.

People who do not turn up to the interview after agreeing it: 87 88

I have written about this elsewhere, with more problems, all of which are easily solved by people wanting work: https://www.reddit.com/r/pakistan/comments/1vmqkna/comment/p3eb384/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

What's the most expensive meal you've ever had in Pakistan?

Drop the name of the restaurant, what sort of thing you had and the cost per head.

I'll start: but warning, these were crazy extravagant and I rarely eat out for more than 3k/head! These were special occasions!

Amu's in Lahore, dropped 11k/ head on breakfast. Crab sandwich, french toast, lots of coffee.

Cafe Flo, Karachi, managed to spend 31k on dinner for 2 (15.5k/head) on 3 starters, 2 mains, 2 desserts, coffee...

I have launched a couple of courses on Udemy - one is priced at $19.99 and to be honest, I give away a ton of free vouchers there as it is part of my marketing campaign for my consultancy business. It has 789 students with a rating of 4.55 stars.

I am about to launch a second course at a $99-$200 price point. It is going to be extremely niche - but will support business in low governance areas (Pakistan, Bangladesh, parts of Africa) that trade a lot with highly regulated environments such as Europe or the Middle East.

I am looking for someone who can undertake marketing, starting in Pakistan and moving out, that is willing to work part time (it is not likely that this will earn enough to pay you a full time wage - it will not sell in the thousands!).

If you have done Udemy marketing before, get in touch.

I have not thought about the money for this one - I am likely more comfortable with a decent commission. I want the person to be based in Pakistan so that payments to them are easier.

If you are interested, DM with:

1. how many years Udemy marketing you have done

2. your % commission per course (assuming $100-200 course cost)

I will get in touch with those that seem the most experienced and we can take it from there.

I'm planning to be in Skardu in the last week of December. I want a car and driver. I know places like Deosai are not accessible but a car capable of day trips to places with sightseeing. Appreciate any leads.

I'm planning to be in Skardu in the last week of December. I want a car and driver. I know places like Deosai are not accessible but a car capable of day trips to places with sightseeing. Appreciate any leads.

A couple of times I have posted part time work on Reddit - the first one was someone to improve my PPT presentations and the second was for an Urdu tutor.

Some people will say that I am being utterly picky - and they would be right - the skills I want are not that rare, and you often get 50-200 replies. You have to have a way to weed out the unsuitable ones - so every slip counts.

Here are my observations and reasons for not bothering to reply to so many of the people that took time to reply:

• Not following instructions
  • For the PPT role I sent a list of 5 numbered questions and asked people to answer them specifically (what is your current role, are you happy with the pay, can you manage 20hrs a month, etc) - mostly yes/no answers. I think perhaps 20% of responses contained answers.
  • For the Urdu tutor, I asked people to DM with one thing: tell me why you would be an interesting person to learn with - again, perhaps 20% of people have followed this instruction
• Not reading the post properly
  • I'll admit that the posts were long - perhaps 200 words each. This is so I could explain what I wanted exactly. I am totally fine with being asked questions - but if I say 'I am an adult with the reading age of a 6 year old in Urdu', it is absurd for people to write to me and ask my level! These are all messages that I ignored as they were lazy.
• Not knowing how to send an invitation through Google Meet
  • For some of the people that managed to clear this first basic stage, I asked them to send me a Google meet invite - I even said to put a title in for the meeting in the format 'Urdu trial - your name'. I am baffled by the number of people that cannot manage this basic task - invitation declined.
• Not responding in proper English
  • Reddit is a pretty casual place - no issues with slang or abbreviations. Also, a lot of people are using phones, which are a little harder to be accurate on. But if the advert demands that you have good English and grammar, then is is that hard to paste your message in AI and get it to tidy up any errors? If I am applying for a role that requires good English, I will always make sure that what I write is not littered with errors.

Pakistan is a hard market - everyone wants work - I am sure that I rejected plenty of PPT ninjas and Urdu scholars - I may end up with 2nd best or 3rd best people - but when someone is offering a role, they cannot spend hundreds of hours vetting and assessing each candidate.

I tell this to people when I am teaching CV writing - imagine that the person looking at your application has 300 others to look at - their entire aim is to find a reason to bin your application - you have to force them to keep it in their YES pile. So do not make silly mistakes.

I HAVE HAD TOO MANY PEOPLE APPLY - I AM NOT ACCEPTING ANY MORE APPLICATIONS AS I HAVE CHOSEN 4 PEOPLE TO GIVE ME SAMPLE LESSONS - WILL REPOST THIS IS NONE OF THEM ARE SUITABLE - IF YOU HAVE MESSAGED, APOLOGIES FOR NOT REPLYING - I HAVE ABOUT 200 DMs!

Salaam, I am looking for someone to teach me how to read Urdu properly. I am an adult but have the reading age of a 6 year old.

I am looking for someone who can engage with me for 4 lessons a week, 30 minutes each, online. The times will generally be in the morning but I travel for work a lot or have a busy schedule, so the times will vary - I will agree the slots with you at least a week in advance. Occasionally, and depending on your availability, we can also agree lessons during the day or evening. But it is likely to mainly be the morning. However we arrange it, it will be through mutual agreement.

I am looking to improve my reading - I appear to be able to speak Urdu but actually have a very limited vocabulary.

The person I would like to teach me has to have:

• very good English so that you can explain grammar or vocabulary to me properly
• excellent timekeeping - my diary is usually full and if you are 2 minutes late, then often I cannot stay 2 minutes late to complete the time
• a reasonable internet connection (mobile is fine - we can do this by WhatsApp)

I am offering PKR1,000/hour - which means that most months the pay will be PKR8k-10k depending on the number of days in a month, which will be paid weekly.

If you are a student that is free during the summer break, but will abandon this once semester starts, please do NOT get in touch.

Plus points to anyone that can find me things to read that are not religious and are not boring children's stories. Happy for you to use AI to generate our reading text.

We'll do a 15 min sample lesson so that I can get a sense of you and then agree a schedule.

If interested, please DM me and tell me why you would make an interesting person to work with.

EDIT 11.40am: about 30 DMs - only 2 people have followed the instructions - see the sentence immediately above!

A friend of mine has fallen in love with a girl at uni. They are planning to get married in 2027 when they graduate.

My friend's mother asked me about the character of the girl and her family and background. But we don't really know her.

It's proving really hard to find out about her. My friend didn't want to know anything other than he's in love.

Is there an agency, decent people, who can be paid to do some digging into the girls family and background to satisfy the boy's family?

Nothing illegal or spying. Just basic information.

I am not a lawyer (I have an LLM from the UK and work in legal compliance) - but I work with a lot of lawyers in Pakistan, the GCC and Europe.

I feel pretty depressed about lawyers in Pakistan - and I really wanted to share my thoughts and have lawyers explain the reality to me.

So, first off, there are FAR too many lawyers in Pakistan - go to the smallest town in Pakistan and there is usually an accountancy school and a place offer legal studies.

If you don't do STEM, you are often pushed into law as a 'respectable' humanities subject.

There are hundreds of thousands of people with LLBs from ghatiya universities all chasing work. And there is little work, and even less chance of becoming a pupil of an experienced lawyer who can teach you the application of the law.

There are excellent LLB graduates but in Pakistan, there are few law firms that recruit and actual nurture youngsters to make them good lawyers.

Anyone with an LLB from any useless university sets up in practice and there is horrific race to the bottom. No real professional development.

Graduates who want to become practicing lawyers are paid barely enough to cover the fuel for a bike for the month.

Most lawyers end up scratching in the dirt in a system where to win, you have to bribe and be dishonest - the court system corrupts almost everyone other than those with some success or backing.

So, most people go into a rotten system and rots very quickly - of course, not ALL lawyers.

But lawyers take on whatever they can, whether they can deliver or not - there is no transparency about fees, or hours worked or anything else.

90% of the profession is a total joke.

I am working with senior barristers who were not taught enough and who claim that they understand the area of law I work in - they do not know the basics.

Crappy pizza delivery job. Clueless boss - really silly system.

So, order comes in, it is written on a chit of paper with the cost - then prepared.

Once order ready, pizza given to delivery rider with chit. Rider delivers, picks up, say $20 for the pizza and then puts the chit into a box - each shift, there is a row of empty 1 gallon ice cream tubs with a slot cut in the lid and the rider's initials.

At the end of the shift, the boss opens each box, takes out the chits, tots up the amount collected by the rider and collects that money. Then calculates the per hour rate and a bonus for each delivery made.

I guess you can see what happens - the chit is the only record of the transaction (they are 99% in cash), so all a rider that has made 20 deliveries in a shift with average $20 orders (who has collected $300-$400 that shift) has to do is pocket 5 orders, not submit the chits and take all of the money for the order. The bosses are too dumb to realise.

I submit all my chits - the boss keeps on noticing that I have the largest commission because the others are throwing several of their chits away and not getting commission but pocketing the cash.

Boss thinks that I am being a dick and taking on too many deliveries and being unfair to the others.

He reduced my deliveries. I make less money - the other drivers are raking in the cash.

I tell the boss about how the others are stealing and how he has to change the system - also tell him not to let the others know.

So he tells them that I have accused them all of theft. But, see, he is such a moron, he fails to change the system.

The next shift, after I make 18 deliveries, the boss opens the boxes to pay us - I have only 2 chits, and the others have close to 20. I am gobsmacked - I assume they have taken a handful of my chits and binned them.

They all turn to me and say that I am the thief. Boss sacks me.

I guess, at least I get a bonus of the uncounted chits where I made deliveries - I go home with about $400 in my pocket...

Crappy pizza delivery job. Clueless boss - really silly system.

So, order comes in, it is written on a chit of paper with the cost - then prepared.

Once order ready, pizza given to delivery rider with chit. Rider delivers, picks up, say $20 for the pizza and then puts the chit into a box - each shift, there is a row of empty 1 gallon ice cream tubs with a slot cut in the lid and the rider's initials.

At the end of the shift, the boss opens each box, takes out the chits, tots up the amount collected by the rider and collects that money. Then calculates the per hour rate and a bonus for each delivery made.

I guess you can see what happens - the chit is the only record of the transaction (they are 99% in cash), so all a rider that has made 20 deliveries in a shift with average $20 orders (who has collected $300-$400 that shift) has to do is pocket 5 orders, not submit the chits and take all of the money for the order. The bosses are too dumb to realise.

I submit all my chits - the boss keeps on noticing that I have the largest commission because the others are throwing several of their chits away and not getting commission but pocketing the cash.

Boss thinks that I am being a dick and taking on too many deliveries and being unfair to the others.

He reduced my deliveries. I make less money - the other drivers are raking in the cash.

I tell the boss about how the others are stealing and how he has to change the system - also tell him not to let the others know.

So he tells them that I have accused them all of theft. But, see, he is such a moron, he fails to change the system.

The next shift, after I make 18 deliveries, the boss opens the boxes to pay us - I have only 2 chits, and the others have close to 20. I am gobsmacked - I assume they have taken a handful of my chits and binned them.

They all turn to me and say that I am the thief. Boss sacks me.

I guess, at least I get a bonus of the uncounted chits where I made deliveries - I go home with about $400 in my pocket...

Throughout so many subs I am seeing people asking about internships - as someone who takes on interns occasionally, I wanted to give some advice to those people who may not be attending the absolute best universities in Pakistan, and who don't have a Chacha working in an MNC - I mean normal people.

People sometimes try LinkedIn but it rarely works because people do it wrong. So here are my tips for being recognised on LI (this is how I took on 4 out of my 5 interns).

1. You cannot make your account the week before you apply
2. You need to make it at least 18 months before you want an internship
3. Spend time creating a proper profile - decent picture, education (including last or final GPAs and making sure you pic the actual organization, not write a random abbreviation for the institution), projects (you should give diagrams, details, the skills you learned, etc), interests (not 'Netflix' but relevant interests - if you are into Law, tell us what books you read outside of the curriculum, or what cases interest you)
4. Look for relevant people to follow - people in the industry you are trying to get into
5. Identify the people that matter - connect to CEOs and junior customer service people - but these are not likely to be making internship decisions (CEOs may get involved if it is a start up). Look for people in senior or middle roles.
6. Send out perhaps 5-12 connection requests a day - not too many - don't just connect to anyone - curate the list of people you want to be connected to
7. At the very start, connect to perhaps 5 people and ramp this up slowly (or you can get banned) - I would literally do 2-5 a day for a month, then increase slowly.
8. When people see the connection request, the headline is what matters in your profile - "CS Undergrad with passion for Rust" tells people who you are and what you want to learn more about. This is how people decide on whether to connect with you.
9. Slowly start to comment on relevant posts from these people - not rubbish like a thumbs up, or 'great insight' - actually say something. If they write about a problem, it is great to say 'I've never heard of this before - what would you recommend I read to understand this more?' - show actual engagement.
10. Try to make a comment at least 3 times a week at the start (do NOT set an alarm and then comment 'great post' on the first 3 posts you see - the algo sees that you are just trying to raise your profile without adding any value.
11. Organically move into getting into conversations - even if it is not with the original poster, then they may still read how you are interacting with others and adding value and insight to the conversation
12. If you cannot add value, asking questions (not lazy ones that you can just look up, but asking people their experience of a problem is best)
13. If you ask a question, it cannot be vague or of the sort where you are expecting the other person to write an essay or do research for you - they will ignore you
14. Remember, it is professional platform - if you disagree, do so politely - no flaming! You are trying to build a reputation
15. Once you see the chance, based on the sorts of things that people are talking about, to say something interesting, start to post. It does not have to be long. Use AI to help clarify your ideas or spellcheck - do NOT use AI to write your posts - they are easy to spot and then no one is interested in you ever again.
16. Slowly writing and being a voice that adds value, being connected to the right people gets you noticed by the sorts of people that are offering internships.

Good luck!

PS. I work in such an obscure area, there are perhaps only 50 people in Pakistan that could become an intern for me - so don't ask me for one. If you do, find me on LI (I am one of the most prominent voices there in my own field and do the above).