Post #50. I am so hard out. I tiny fraction of the relentless pouring of ideas and opinion that flows forth from me. I am so so sorry. Here's more!
I've slowly been learning about how business is done in the middle east. Business is never black and white, mostly just a large ouroboros grey area, but here in many ways it is more straight forward than at home.
In the western world if someone's not going to pay you for example, you'll often have to play cat and mouse for an extended period of time, dithering around while people just hope the situation goes away. Not here, here it's as simple as "I'm not going to pay that".
The strange part then is that such a decision can be made quite arbitrarily outside the bounds of logic or reason and completely removed from the quality of services rendered. They just don't pay it because they don't want to.
It's an interesting system and one that would no doubt be challenged in a court of law.. if this weren't the middle east. The powers that be play by their own rules, because they can. There's a large western influence and things operate within certain familiar parameters, but when it comes to the crunch, the locals get things their own way.
Where I work is no different and while I have a contract, its contents seem to be generally meaningless.
Today the company decided to stop paying for food and laundry. They didn't tell us, those things just stopped being paid for. Surprise!
I should point out that I am paid reasonably well here, but anyone is likely to grumble when their income is skewed to the tune of $250 a week after signing off on what was contractually agreed.
I'm sure there's a sub-clause which reads "we can do whatever we want", but it's the sort of nuisance value which is easy to fixate on when you're spare time is spent alone in your hotel room staring at an empty bowl and a pile of laundry.
I've slowly been learning about how business is done in the middle east. Business is never black and white, mostly just a large ouroboros grey area, but here in many ways it is more straight forward than at home.
In the western world if someone's not going to pay you for example, you'll often have to play cat and mouse for an extended period of time, dithering around while people just hope the situation goes away. Not here, here it's as simple as "I'm not going to pay that".
The strange part then is that such a decision can be made quite arbitrarily outside the bounds of logic or reason and completely removed from the quality of services rendered. They just don't pay it because they don't want to.
It's an interesting system and one that would no doubt be challenged in a court of law.. if this weren't the middle east. The powers that be play by their own rules, because they can. There's a large western influence and things operate within certain familiar parameters, but when it comes to the crunch, the locals get things their own way.
Where I work is no different and while I have a contract, its contents seem to be generally meaningless.
Today the company decided to stop paying for food and laundry. They didn't tell us, those things just stopped being paid for. Surprise!
I should point out that I am paid reasonably well here, but anyone is likely to grumble when their income is skewed to the tune of $250 a week after signing off on what was contractually agreed.
I'm sure there's a sub-clause which reads "we can do whatever we want", but it's the sort of nuisance value which is easy to fixate on when you're spare time is spent alone in your hotel room staring at an empty bowl and a pile of laundry.
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