He is now the holder of a master’s degree obtained from one of the universities in the United States after he was sent abroad as part of the king’s scholarship program.
Soon after reaching home, Khaled started leading a secluded life, immersing himself in the world of his certificates. He attempted to visualize his plans and programs, yet he had taken no practical steps to make them a reality.
Hence, his mother suggested to him that the first thing he could do was to seek a life partner.
He tried to convince her that he would marry only after getting a job. However, she was adamant that he got married, as she was certain it would be very easy for him to get any job because of his qualifications.
Her conviction was that everybody in the labor market was willing to hire him, so she started searching for a suitable girl for him.
But the response was not encouraging. In some cases, the parents of girls rejected her proposal. In other cases, they refused because he was jobless.
Others refused after finding out about his frequent travels abroad. Khaled’s sister, the main mediator between the two families, was unsuccessful in her efforts to convince girls to choose him as a life partner.
She tried to convince them that her brother’s frequent travels were part of his education and had nothing to do with any immoral activities.
She also tried to make them believe that he was a good man, who firmly believed that every human being would be held accountable in front of God whether he or she was in Riyadh, in London or in New York.
Khaled’s sister smiled and added that her society believed that traveling abroad contributed to a deviation from moral behavior as far as youths are concerned.
So, no youth should travel until he gets married, before telling his wife that she should bear with his excursions and keep an eye on his conduct!
Khaled closed the door on marriage because it was not his priority but his mother’s.
He then took a printout of his curriculum vitae in both Arabic and English, and started searching for a suitable job.
His pursuit took a long time and everyone he encountered gave him a polite smile before refusing to offer him a position.
He could not find any job within the government sector nor the private sector. The organizations he approached were content to look at the CVs of jobseekers already on their computer systems.
Khaled quickly realized the stupidity of hiring a lot of limousines and crossing busy streets to reach many government and private offices and firms, simply in search of a job.
He also came to realize that jobs are waiting only for those who have strong recommendations and not for those who have only academic excellence and certificates of qualifications.
