UAE | Media
Lasting memories: Naheed Patel
Some long-term staff mambers share their thoughts
- By Emmanuelle Landais, Staff Reporter
- Published: 01:18 September 30, 2008
Some long-term staff mambers share their thoughts
Naheed Patel joined Gulf News in 1986. Today she is the Promotions Manager and works behind the scenes putting together the events and competitions that go hand-in-hand with the Gulf News brand, such as the Fun Drive or the newly revisited Blockbusters.
Patel originally joined as Administrator. She quickly took on other responsibilities recruiting telephone operators and the relocation to the new offices on Shaikh Zayed Road. "We had to move people to the new building. I initiated the minibuses to take staff to work and home and we started launching the events," she remembers.
"That very first year we did the Fun Drive and Blockbusters, we had the Junior News competitions. It was full-time work organising all these events. We had corporate awards too and I've always been there putting it together."
Patel has a passion for what she does. "This is home, we are a clan. I cannot see beyond it. Maybe I'm besotted," she laughs.
Delivering Gulf News events means no two weeks look alike in the office, a working environment she really thrives in. "I also think I'm the oldest employee here. I'm quite proud of that," says Patel.
The annual Fun Drive, which takes a convoy of participants through the desert, is her favourite event. "It gets the adrenalin going. In the beginning we had 75 cars and in the 1990s we had 750. I have tried for three years to get the event in to the Guinness Book of World Records but apparently it cannot be measured against anything so we have been turned down for the moment. But we are the biggest civilian convoy to do this."
Gulf News had been involved with all the ‘biggies' - from tennis to the Desert Classic. For the past 30 years Gulf News has backed all the major events. "People don't know all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes but that's OK. It doesn't happen by itself but I enjoy it. It is hard work because you can't get anything wrong."
Patel believes in the image of her product. "Gulf News is what it is… I always knew it would succeed. It looks good, it's structured and authoritative. You really have to love your product, without that it won't work."
D. Venkatesh, Service Manager in the operations department, says when he joined Gulf News in 1985 it was a transitional period for the newspaper from being a tabloid to becoming a broadsheet.
"Transition times are tryingperiods, be it with people or with companies. It requires grit, determination and patience to see the testing times through," says the long-time staffer.
Venkatesh was just 21 years old when he came to Dubai from Chennai. Having previously worked in India as an electronics engineer for the Indian Express newspaper, he was hired specifically to incorporate new technology to the company. "The newspaper was changing its format from a tabloid to a broadsheet when I joined Gulf News. During the first few months, I would be setting up new equipment at the office on Shaikh Zayed Road, which was almost completed by then."
According to Venkatesh, the most dramatic change was when the newspaper changed the way it received pictures and stories from newswires. In 1987, the pictures were received through the telephone lines. "We would have a big black box that would print black and white pictures 24 hours a day, and a person would have to keep refilling the photographic paper.
"We could not choose which pictures we wanted, so we would have to get everything. Whenever the local newswire would send Gulf News a picture, they would call and let me know how many pictures they had sent. For ten years I would talk to the same person and never once see his face," he says.
Gulf News began publishing its first colour pictures in 1985 but this was limited to the front page. The second stage of development came with the introduction of the internet. "Before the internet came to Dubai, the newspaper was already using it through a dial-up connection that we had with a Norwegian-based company. That way we were able to get a number of stories and pictures and could select which ones we wanted to use."
Gulf News also acquired a larger press machine that could print out more pages and handle colour. At the time of the Gulf War in 1990 Macintosh computers were popular in the market.
"Instead of cutting and pasting, we were then able to do full-page pagination. We only had six computers but now we have well over 200. Technology has advanced a lot since I first joined, and nowadays it does not really matter what computer you have because they all use the same software," says Venkatesh.
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