JOUF: While the government takes pains to provide its staff with training courses abroad to improve their skills and work performance, a course in the United States had the opposite effect on one employee who, as soon as he returned to the Kingdom, handed in his notice. Al-Watan Arabic daily reported 57-year-old Abu Naseer as saying that it was his American instructor's repeated referrals to “work in a job you love” that led him to abandon his civil service position in Riyadh and return to his home town in Al-Jouf to become a cook. “As soon as I heard the phrase it struck a chord, and my conviction become stronger until I decided that as soon as I returned I would work in what I love doing,” Abu Nasser told Al-Watan. “So I left my job and opened up a restaurant in Daumat Jandal, and it was such as success that I opened another in Sakaka.” He said he inherited his passion for cooking from his father. “Here in Saudi Arabia our customs and social traditions stop us doing what we love. I didn't like my job, even though I'd been doing it for quite a few years. I was always simply waiting for the weekend to arrive as quickly as possible.” Abu Nasser said that now, by contrast, he works longer hours and with no day off, producing some 200 kilos of rice per day. He says that he found traditional Saudi cuisine to be extremely popular with the public, more so than foreign food, and that he is making a good living out of his new life. “Another of the great things about running the restaurant is that I get to see my children a lot more, as my two sons are with me in the restaurant a lot of the time,” he told Al-Watan. “I am now at peace with myself.”
