Dubai, the Trap
I wanted to share with any of you who might be interested to work in Dubai or Gulf, my little experience, and I would be glad to answer anyone's questions about anything regarding emirates..
Before planning or deciding to come here you have to know the following:
The Dark Side of the coin
1-Gulf is not anymore about money as it used to be in the past, using the calculator and converting your GCC salary to egyptian pounds is the biggest mistake, you actually spend in the currency of the country you work in, so it is a factor of their living standards, everyday expenses and recurring expenses.
2-Gulf is just like any other arab country; lacks the ability to manage properly, has no defined policies, no career paths and eventually evaluation, promotions and rights are based on color, nationality and ethnic races.
3-Gulf is a set of touristic cities that has artificial nature, great architecture buildings, huge malls, no customs or taxes, all ranges of products that you mightn't even find in europe or usa easily. This is actually intended to take back all your salary, individual items might seem cheap but it adds up.
4-Gulf is nearly an indian arabic land :) so be prepared to live, work, fight and argue in english or urdu with indians, palistanis and filipino. Words like 'Cida' and others will tend to replace ur arabic language as you will keep hearing it all the time everywhere everytime.
5-Gulf is where sudanese, indians, pakistanis and many other nationalities pack up and group together, share their experiences and advise one another, each indian brings a long hundred more of his type. Sadly, the contrary is with Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians..not all of them ofcourse, they keep their experience to themselves, enjoy to see you suffer and hate it when you succeed as if you are competing with them.
6-Gulf is where you should always expect slave treatment at government locations and work unless it was multinational. They give locals, europeans and americans the right to come and go unasked, work or not, deliver or sleep, they are the untouchables, and they take the biggest sums and salaries. At government, you can stand in a queue for a long time and once a local shows up he is allowed to be serviced immediately.
The Bright Side
1-Egyptians remain the most experienced in their field, eventually they become appreciated in one form or another despite of the politics that is in the air.
2-Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos can easily be managed, infact you can make them do whatever you want if you press the right buttons, starting from the doorman of your building to the manager of your department.
3-You can buy the cheapest, nicest gadgets, electronics, furniture, cars with the easiest to have loans, with nearly 0 paperwork, you just have it all delivered to your doorstep. No customs, no taxes on either products or salaries.
4-You can do a lot of job hunting and end up with a multinational employer if you're lucky. This way you have a chance to find proper management, some sort of experience and a decent salary/treatment.
5-Sweet health insurance that truly covers the expenses of whatever you can think of.
6-Endless selection of homes to rent from, it requires a lot of time to decide though, but most of the proper choices are very expensive, renting homes here is done in a yearly fashion, you pay three months in advance and the rest in 3 cheques.
General Advice:
-Never travel to dubai on visitor/tourist visa and hope to find a job, unless you know who you will stay with and you are still keeping your current job, it is very tricky here, sometimes they employ everyone and at other times ...
-When you apply to jobs in dubai while you are in egypt and receive an offer, make sure that the salary or the amount they define for you is enough for renting a home, buying a car, eating and keeping the electricity running in your door. If you don't know the expenses don't ask the employer about it, he will underestimate it and trap you.
-You might say, I can accept any offer and just use that job as an entry to dubai and then look for other jobs or employers, but take care, if your employer is not a free zone employer then you have to leave the country and come back with your residency canceled, you might be forced to work on visitor renewable visa for 6 months. The big thing about that is that as long as you are not a resident you cannot own anything, cannot rent a home, buy a car, have landline,..ofcourse if you had the driving license with the first residency you can use it or you can just use the international driving license.
There is a lot more to say, but I can't just list it all in an email, whatever questions or ideas you have in mind regarding GCC, Dubai or Canada just pass me the question and I will work on helping you with it..
I am sharing this information with you to help you all discover the real picture and not to be fooled by the surface bright bells and lights these countries have..
Before planning or deciding to come here you have to know the following:
The Dark Side of the coin
1-Gulf is not anymore about money as it used to be in the past, using the calculator and converting your GCC salary to egyptian pounds is the biggest mistake, you actually spend in the currency of the country you work in, so it is a factor of their living standards, everyday expenses and recurring expenses.
2-Gulf is just like any other arab country; lacks the ability to manage properly, has no defined policies, no career paths and eventually evaluation, promotions and rights are based on color, nationality and ethnic races.
3-Gulf is a set of touristic cities that has artificial nature, great architecture buildings, huge malls, no customs or taxes, all ranges of products that you mightn't even find in europe or usa easily. This is actually intended to take back all your salary, individual items might seem cheap but it adds up.
4-Gulf is nearly an indian arabic land :) so be prepared to live, work, fight and argue in english or urdu with indians, palistanis and filipino. Words like 'Cida'
5-Gulf is where sudanese, indians, pakistanis and many other nationalities pack up and group together, share their experiences and advise one another, each indian brings a long hundred more of his type. Sadly, the contrary is with Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians..not all of them ofcourse, they keep their experience to themselves, enjoy to see you suffer and hate it when you succeed as if you are competing with them.
6-Gulf is where you should always expect slave treatment at government locations and work unless it was multinational. They give locals, europeans and americans the right to come and go unasked, work or not, deliver or sleep, they are the untouchables, and they take the biggest sums and salaries. At government, you can stand in a queue for a long time and once a local shows up he is allowed to be serviced immediately.
The Bright Side
1-Egyptians remain the most experienced in their field, eventually they become appreciated in one form or another despite of the politics that is in the air.
2-Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos can easily be managed, infact you can make them do whatever you want if you press the right buttons, starting from the doorman of your building to the manager of your department.
3-You can buy the cheapest, nicest gadgets, electronics, furniture, cars with the easiest to have loans, with nearly 0 paperwork, you just have it all delivered to your doorstep. No customs, no taxes on either products or salaries.
4-You can do a lot of job hunting and end up with a multinational employer if you're lucky. This way you have a chance to find proper management, some sort of experience and a decent salary/treatment.
5-Sweet health insurance that truly covers the expenses of whatever you can think of.
6-Endless selection of homes to rent from, it requires a lot of time to decide though, but most of the proper choices are very expensive, renting homes here is done in a yearly fashion, you pay three months in advance and the rest in 3 cheques.
General Advice:
-Never travel to dubai on visitor/tourist visa and hope to find a job, unless you know who you will stay with and you are still keeping your current job, it is very tricky here, sometimes they employ everyone and at other times ...
-When you apply to jobs in dubai while you are in egypt and receive an offer, make sure that the salary or the amount they define for you is enough for renting a home, buying a car, eating and keeping the electricity running in your door. If you don't know the expenses don't ask the employer about it, he will underestimate it and trap you.
-You might say, I can accept any offer and just use that job as an entry to dubai and then look for other jobs or employers, but take care, if your employer is not a free zone employer then you have to leave the country and come back with your residency canceled, you might be forced to work on visitor renewable visa for 6 months. The big thing about that is that as long as you are not a resident you cannot own anything, cannot rent a home, buy a car, have landline,..ofcourse if you had the driving license with the first residency you can use it or you can just use the international driving license.
There is a lot more to say, but I can't just list it all in an email, whatever questions or ideas you have in mind regarding GCC, Dubai or Canada just pass me the question and I will work on helping you with it..
I am sharing this information with you to help you all discover the real picture and not to be fooled by the surface bright bells and lights these countries have..
posted by voicy at
3/03/2006 12:39:00 PM
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4 comments
