I realise that some poor souls simply have no choice but to join Qatar - family pressures, no other jobs etc. They have my deepest sympathy and I wish them well in their futures. However, the root cause of many pilots' problems at Qatar is a real lack of a reality check prior to going. There are innumerable warnings on the likes of PPRuNe about what you are getting into, but somehow people think it really cannot be that bad. It is the same mentality that some juries in the UK have when faced with some ghastly monster who has just raped 10 women and chopped them up - they cannot bring themselves to believe that someone can be that evil so they start believing the defence line that the chap who did it is really a good guy who had some problems at home, had a bad childhood etc. The frightening thing is that the juries buy it hook, line and sinker and find the guy mad rather than bad. It is exactly the same with Qatar - there are countless tales about Al Bakar (is that how you spell it?) and his totally deranged way of carrying on, but no one wants to believe it is true. The problem is that it is true and the man is nasty, unpleasant and crazy with it. Yet no one believes it until one day they find themselves victims of the guy and suddenly wake up and smell the coffee. Sadly it is all too late and their fate is sealed. May I therefore make a suggestion? Do not go there unless you have absolutely no other choice on this earth, rather than find out the hard way. It really is not rocket science.