Hi guys, I am finally back from my longest trip this year and it was to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and such trips often give me so much inspiration for my blog posts. You can check out all my posts fro this trip on my Instagram. In this first post, I'm going to talk about one aspect of life in Dubai which most people would notice the moment they arrive there - well, certainly that was one thing that struck me : all that wealth, the money and the rich people there. Oh the amount of rich people there and I supposed I experienced Dubai as a businessman on a business trip with a very generous expenses budget. I could take clients out to restaurants and order anything I wanted, there was one day when I had lobster for both lunch and dinner. But of course, there are plenty of people in Dubai who are not earning that much, but I was there to meet the rich people running very successful businesses. I remember on one night, I went out for dinner on my own and paid 50 AED (US$13.60, £11.20 or S$18.50) for a set meal (starter, main course, drink and a little bit of fruit for desert) at dinner and that's the kind of person I am, always looking out for a good deal. Then the next night, I was invited out for dinner by a client and just a side dish at that rooftop restaurant cost 50 AED. Good grief, I don't even want to know how much that dinner came to but then Dubai is the kind of place where the rich get to party in the company of other rich people because the poor are priced out of that market. So yes, I did get to meet and mingle with a lot of very rich people there and I'd like to focus on two people I met at my hotel in this post and discuss my feelings towards them.
On this trip, my boss booked us into a rather nice five star hotel in the Business Bay district - that's part of the reason why I like traveling on business as I get to stay in these expensive places. Of course the staff there treated me like a VIP and the room was awesome, along with everything from the pool to the breakfast to the restaurants. I would wake up early enough to have a quick swim before breakfast as I didn't want to miss enjoying that glorious pool in the hotel - that was when I met this guy, let's call him Ivan (not his real name). We started talking over the most bizarre incident - you could get coffee free with your breakfast but if you ordered coffee at the pool, sure they'll bring you a coffee but you had to pay for it. So being cheap, I would not drink coffee at the pool. Ivan ordered a coffee but complained that it tasted weird and he accused the staff of using tap water to make it. The tap water in Dubai is actually safe to drink but can taste somewhat unpleasant as it is desalinated water. The hotel staff told him that they used filtered water to make the coffee, so Ivan ordered the most expensive mineral water on the menu and asked them to make his coffee with that mineral water. So when his coffee came, he asked me to taste the two cups of coffee, "now surely you can tell me which one was made with the filtered water and which one was made with the mineral water." Well it wasn't hard to guess, the one made with the mineral water was a lot hotter as the one he was originally served had been left by the pool side cooling down for a while, but I wasn't going to tell him that. When I identified the right cup of coffee, he said, "I know you're a refined man with great taste, I want to be your friend!" When someone gives you a compliment like that, you don't say, "well actually, I just picked the hotter cup of coffee." No, I simply smiled and shook his hand; in case you're wondering, the expensive mineral water really did not improve the taste of the coffee: if you want better coffee, buy better coffee beans.
Ivan spoke English with an Eastern European accent and he turned out to be Lithuanian; I welcomed his company as he was friendly enough - naturally, I asked him if he was there on holiday and he said no, he was working. So I asked him what he did and his answer surprised me. Ivan procured items for the crazy rich - so if a rich person wanted a limited edition handbag or watch worth a small fortune, Ivan would hunt that item down, fly to whichever city personally (first class of course) then he would pick up that item and travel back with it to deliver the item as you wouldn't send something that expensive and valuable in the post with any kind of courier company (that's what Ivan claimed, I don't agree with him). I think part of the reason why it is done this way is because these rich people don't want to pay any kind of tax on such a purchase. So the VAT in the UK is 20%, I buy an item that costs £100, the price I pay will be £120 because of VAT. Now imagine if I bought an item worth £1 million, do I really want to pay £200,000 tax on it? No, even rich people don't like paying taxes - that's why there's a huge industry dedicated to helping rich people avoid taxes called fiduciary and tax planning. Thus it is far cheaper to use Ivan's services - if he fails to deliver the item you ordered, you don't pay him but if he does deliver, then you get to dodge a lot of tax on such an expensive purchase even after you pay Ivan's fees and expenses. Ivan shared with me incredible stories about having flown from Vienna to New York to pick up an item to hand deliver it to an Austrian heiress on a yacht in out in the Bahamas - his flight was delayed, so the client had arranged for him to fly out by helicopter to meet the yacht out at sea and of course, that yacht had a helipad. Ivan jumps in a helicopter the same way I get a taxi. A part of me was cynical - I suspected that he could be exaggerating but then another part of me thought, "don't be fazed by rich people and their wealth, so just listen, don't show any emotions."
So in our conversation by the pool, I found out that Ivan was picking up a special delivery and then hopping on the next flight to Moscow where his client is - being Lithuanian, Ivan does speak Russian and it is a lot harder for a lot of rich Russians to buy the kind of luxury goods they desire after the invasion of Ukraine. So Ivan had just come from Barcelona where he had picked up one item and once he had picked up that second item in Dubai, he would fly to Moscow to make the delivery - many Middle Eastern airlines still fly that route to Moscow because they have refused to join in the sanctions imposed on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. What Ivan is doing is somewhat illegal but given how much wealth there is in a place like Dubai, if he has a first class ticket on a flight to Moscow, nobody would bat an eyelid if he had a few luxury items in his luggage for his 'friends' in Moscow. I have no idea how much Ivan earns, but he's flying first class whilst I'm only in business class. I'm running from one meeting to another whilst he is drinking champagne by the pool side waiting for his delivery - clearly, he is doing better than me and I'd love a job like that. I do speak Russian after all but I am definitely on the side of the Ukrainians in this conflict; thus that was something I asked Ivan. He said that as a Lithuanian person, of course there's a fear that Russia might pick a fight with a much smaller country like Lithuania after failing to conquer Ukraine but before that happens, he has got to make enough money before world war three breaks out and then he can escape to the safety of a small island far away from the conflict, with the knowledge that he has enough money stashed away in an offshore bank account to allow him to live well for the rest of his life. We exchanged numbers and he started sending me messages about some of the goods he could procure for my rich Latin American clients - let's just say the price tags on those items made me gasp. But there are some people in Moscow willing to pay such prices and hence that keeps Ivan's business doing - putting my morals and ethics aside, he's much younger and richer than me.
Let me contrast Ivan with another person I met at the hotel - let's call her Akila as that means 'clever' in Arabic which I think is quite appropriate. She worked at the hotel restaurant and that's where I would have my breakfast along with some business meetings; thus I have witnessed her move from table to table switching effortlessly from French to Spanish to English to Russian to German to Arabic - I couldn't resist talking to her in all of those languages since obviously we do share something in common. It turns out that she was from Morocco and so she learnt Arabic, French and English at school but she had picked up all of those other languages whilst working in the hotel over the years. I suppose if you came from a small village in rural Morocco, then working in a super luxury hotel like that in Dubai might be a dream come true. Certainly compared to some of her peers from that village, she has done very well for herself. But I thought that Akila was super intelligent and charming, I felt it was a waste of her talents to be taking orders in various languages like that in the hotel restaurant, that she was capable of so much more than that. I hope Akila is being paid a decent salary so she can live well in a place like Dubai, she told me about her flat mates who are from Egypt and how they struggle to understand her Moroccan Arabic sometimes and they would switch to English mid-sentence as if she didn't speak Arabic. The fact is, Akila, Ivan and myself do have one thing in common: we earn a good living by serving rich people. However, Akila is earning the least, followed by me in the middle whilst Ivan is earning the most. There are plenty of jobs in a place like Dubai where you serve rich clients, but obviously some positions are more lucrative than others. Thus this then begs the question: why is Akila serving me instead of doing my job when she's clearly an intelligent person? Or why aren't I earning more doing the kind of work that Ivan is doing, when I clearly have the language skills? Or for that matter, why isn't Akila doing Ivan's job, if her ultimate aim is to make money to send back home to her family in Morocco then? Why are the three of us in our respective jobs, all serving the rich? Can Akila ever become rich like Ivan?
It's easy to miss out the obvious: the rich people that all three of us are serving. So why aren't we rich like Ivan's clients then? It's easy to answer that question. All three of us share one thing in common - we were born in poor, working class families and that's why we had to find well paid jobs to earn a living in order to become richer. That was something I did talk to Ivan about - he was born in a small town on the Baltic coast of West Lithuania and he left for London as soon as he could, because he knew that he had no future in the Lithuanian countryside. He worked several different jobs in London before getting a job in Mayfair where he worked for a luxury boutique serving many rich Russian clients - he saw the money and his ambition got him to where he is today. Whilst we might question the ethics of dealing with Russian clients whilst there is still a war raging on in Ukraine today, I had to admire his sheer grit and determination to succeed and get rich. He told me about some of the horrible jobs that he had to do in London just to make enough money to pay his rent and he has certainly come a ridiculously long way from having worked those very working class jobs. I am sure many of his former colleagues are still stuck doing those terrible, low-paid jobs today whilst Ivan was sipping champagne by the poolside in a beautiful hotel in Dubai like a very rich man. Ivan wasn't born rich - he was a self-made man. In contrast, many of these crazy rich clients of Ivan are born rich, they simply have rich parents and were given so much money to spend on ludicrously priced luxuries. I suppose the question is how far would you go in terms of your career progression? Ivan went from rags to riches. Will Akila be satisfied doing the same job for the next 20, 30 years until she retires? Or would she go onto doing something different which will be more lucrative, when it is obvious that she is clearly an intelligent and capable person? Or would she be satisfied with her job and make little or no effort to try to find something better? Yes I am rich today compared to Akila, but I certainly have the desire to become even richer like Ivan.
The thing about Dubai is that if you are rich, there is always someone richer than you in Dubai. But if you think you are poor, there's always someone even poorer than you there. The World Cup in Qatar has highlighted the plight of the migrant workers who work in horrific conditions on the construction sites for very little money and that's the exact same conditions that they face if they came to work in Dubai on one of the many construction projects. I was at the pool of the hotel with Ivan when I accidentally dropped my towel on the floor, the lifeguard sprang into action at once, picked up the towel before I could bend over to pick it up and offered me a new one. I was like, oh it's okay I can still use that one that I dropped but he insisted that I take the new one. It was moments like that when I felt like a really rich man with a butler serving my every whim, but I couldn't ignore the fact that I was in the company of Ivan who was obviously a lot richer than me. So how would you have reacted in that situation? Some people would mentally block out the presence of Ivan or just shove his wealth into a blind spot, "I am feeling like a billionaire with his butler now, don't spoil this moment for me!" Or would you do what I did and feel a sense of envy, even jealousy, when you realize that Ivan is definitely a lot richer? I was staying at that nice hotel because my company was paying for all of it, I would have picked a far more reasonably priced affordable hotel if I had been on holiday. But someone like Ivan would only stay in such luxurious hotels and of course, he could easily afford it. I suppose it was a glass half full or half empty situation - I was there being treated to such luxury regardless , should I have been envious at that moment just because I knew Ivan was richer than me or should I simply have been grateful to be right there and then, at that moment and have enjoyed being pampered by the staff at that nice hotel? But being me, if I were to shove Ivan into a blind spot, I would feel guilty about doing that.
So that's it from me on this topic, what do you think? Why is someone like Ivan so ridiculously rich whilst hardworking Akila isn't making as much money? Why isn't Akila at the hotel restaurant doing a better paid professional job in Dubai when she is clearly a very intelligent person with great social skills? What might be holding her back and trapping her in that kind of job? How do I become ridiculously rich like Ivan? How far would you go into order to become rich like Ivan? But can people like Akila ever become as rich as Ivan? Please do leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
Hey Alex. Wow this is an amazing blog post, it's such a shock you managed to encounter such interesting people by the pool and the restaurant. I know people like Ivan, because one of them who worked for the owner of a conglomerate tracked down my father to buy his custom built car that was featured in a local car enthusiast magazine. As for Akila, hot damn that's a lot of languages! However, for me it seems Akila didn't go to university whilst at least you went to uni and Ivan probably did, but even then both you and Ivan had to work shitty jobs to make rent before landing on the right career ladder. Despite Akila being super talented and intelligent, she probably can't easily send in a resume for a sales position at Goldman Sachs because her restaurant experience will have to compete with someone who went to Oxbridge. Even when applying to a normal white collar office job she'd have to beat someone with a degree from a middling university. Sure, many graduates are clueless with no street smarts, but its very difficult to show street smarts on a resume to a gatekeeper. I guess it's just unfortunate she wasn't born into better circumstances, if she was middle class she I bet she would be climbing the corporate ladder by now. The only recourse would probably be to get into a degree program and invest a lot of money, or network with someone willing to give her a white collar job without a degree.
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that Ivan ordered the staff to make coffee with that expensive bottle of mineral water (I still can't get my head around how people pay that much for mineral water, geez) was just something to impress me as it was the only two of us and the hotel staff at the pool at the time. But as for Akila, I didn't know her well enough to say to her, "you're amazing, you should not be doing a job like this." For her, coming to Dubai to work in a luxury hotel is probably already a world away from the rural village in Morocco where she came from and she is already quite happy with what she has achieved but she is serving people like Ivan at the hotel and I do wonder if she ever contemplates getting a better job? She is bright, very much so. And oh for the record, Ivan never went to university. He got into the luxury world because he worked in London for a luxury boutique serving rich Russian customers (again, language skills). That's what Ivan, Akila and I have in common, we're all using our language skills to make a living. I'd gladly give her a job if I knew her better, but then again, I only met her a couple of times in the hotel and she wasn't the only member of staff at that hotel who went out of their way to give me quality service - such hotels have standards, of course. She is far more worthy of a good job than (as you said) a graduate with no street smarts.
DeleteLol that's not even the most particular request I've ever seen. My dad once ordered green tea with honey at a fancy restaurant, tasted it, felt like there was no honey, then demanded a small pot of honey from a waiter. If the prices are high enough waiters will indulge.
DeleteI think you once said to me "in Sales, if you don't ask, you don't get." Ivan was in the same position as Akila once upon a time but working at a luxury boutique instead of a luxury hotel. He probably networked with the regulars there to get into the position he's in now. Even a graduate looking to work in tech or finance has to network, that's what street smarts are. But yeah, you can't impose on Akila and offer her a job. I have a friend who once worked at a cafe in Beijing part time while she was studying at uni. And one of the regulars there was a German man who was impressed with my friend's English and Mandarin. When he found out she was studying engineering, he gave her his business card and told her to contact him if she's looking for a job since he worked at the local branch of Mercedes Benz. But of course that required incentive on my friend's part to ask the regular about himself, and also talk about her situation. Lol that interaction had nothing to do with technical skills at all! Even engineers have to have good social skills to find good jobs.
Btw I just realized that as East Asians we don't fit the stereotype of being all technical skills and no social skills. I met so many of those back in Singapore, even in high positions of power. But in the west it's really difficult to advance that way. You have to learn how to be chummy with people.
DeleteOh I thought the whole thing with the mineral water was stupid anyway, you can spend an insane amount of money on mineral water but if you want good coffee, buy expensive coffee beans to begin with. Great coffee beans + tap water = great coffee. Average coffee beans + expensive mineral water = average coffee at best. But then again, I actually wake up in the morning and make my own coffee. I have a friend who wakes up in the morning, logs onto an app and gets his coffee delivered from the local cafe - I would gladly pop into Starbucks for a cup of coffee when I'm out and about but people like that don't even make a cup of coffee for themselves, I consider that a waste of money but for these people they have so much money, they just need to spend it before they die as they can't take it with them.
DeleteAs for offering Ms Akila a job, I think it's creepy for an older man to do that - like I'm bald and old, she is young, pretty and attractive. I'm a gay man who isn't interested in her that way, but I just felt bad for her as I thought she was a really nice person who is clearly underselling herself because of her background, rather than a lack of ability. I don't know if I am finding excuses not to help her, I was also worried I might offend her if I started pointing out why she shouldn't work in that hotel - loads of people in Dubai work in the hospital sector, just like her and am I assuming some kind of superiority, indicating that she must do what I do in order to be happy? Most of all, she didn't ask me for help. I think she might be breaking some kind of official protocol if she started using her job at the luxury hotel as a way to get chummy with the rich guests to find a better job.
Ahh you make your own coffee. I have some friends who do that. They said it's not just the coffee beans but the coffee maker and the process used. But yeah the mineral water plays a very very small part.
DeleteOh I didn't think about things from that point of view. Yeah it's creepy to accept a job from an older man. I guess I'm only seeing things from my point of view because next week a company is visiting my school to advertise job positions and I'm supposed to network to increase my chances of getting a job. But I'm a PhD student and not a restaurant worker, so this is expected of me and the people being sent by the company to give a talk at universities are intentionally trying to hire people and not just enjoying themselves on vacation.
Yeah I do have my own proper coffee machine, so it's not like I use those pods, I buy my own beans, I grind them and then make my own coffee like they do in a proper cafe - I love my coffee and I enjoy that process. Sometimes I even roast my own coffee beans as well. Oh and I've long accepted that I'm an older man and that does define my interactions with people like Akila whether I feel old or not, I am definitely older than her. If she's in her mid or late 20s, then I'm still 20 years older tthan her at least and that makes me an old man in her eyes, the least I can do is not be creepy. So if she asks me for help, I'll be most willing to help of course. But if I offered help, I fear that might come across as creepy. Ironically, in my world of business, I'm always shamelessly asking people for help whenever the opportunity presents itself.
DeleteYup I know people who even roast their own, or have a $4000 coffee machine at their office. I guess when you're white collar asking for help is treated as networking, even with a client, but in Akila's case it's treated as bothering the customers. I also have to shamelessly ask for help as well when it comes to cutting edge research in academia or industry. It's funny how stratified our society seems. Hmm what is the difference between a "client" and a "customer"? It seems client just means they're paying more and expect a personalized experience, while customer means they're paying less and are retail consumers.
DeleteThe lines between buyer and seller can be blurred when you establish a friendship - I think you used the wrong words, client/customer is basically the same thing. I'm the client/customer at the hotel and Akila is there to serve me whilst I'm spending money there. However, in my previous job, I was the account manager for my current boss, I became so friendly with him that he decided to give me a job the moment he knew I was leaving my old job. Thus in the case of Akila, she could try to become so friendly with the customers that they start seeing her as a friend and wouldn't feel awkward about offering her help because that's exactly how we treat our friends, we like helping our friends.
DeleteYeah semantically speaking client and customer are the same thing, but I almost never hear "customers" in a white collar setting, or "clients" in a blue collar setting. But like you said it gets blurred when a friendship occurs since they are now personally involved in each other's success. And yes poaching is very common in white collar settings. Why use a person's services through a 3rd party business instead of having them on payroll, then they serve you instead of the 3rd party business.
DeleteBtw I've had an incident of being told "don't get friendly with X" recently. My school sent out an email about the internship talk, but added a line at the end saying "please do not contact representatives or CEOs of these organizations without our approval" in bold red font. I suspect they only added it lately because I told one of the organizers I found a prior speaker on LinkedIn and asked them for career advice for how to transition from academic to industry research. But to me it was just networking, and something the career counselor encourages. I guess they were worried I'd say something stupid or inappropriate and companies don't want to come back. But I think advertising to future employees is the purpose of companies spending $$$ on flights and hotels to send their representatives around the country to give talks at universities, so me finding them on LinkedIn and being interested to ask more about job opportunities is probably what they wanted.
You make a fair point about client vs customer in that context. But yes, those with excellent social skills know how to use friendship to blur those lines and that's how I managed to get my current job. As for what you mentioned about getting too friendly, just ignore that - it's a guideline. I have experienced that before, I remember years ago when I was looking for interns for the company I worked for and I exchanged some messages with this guy Michael. He was then super friendly, contacting me on Linkedin with messages like 'so what are you doing this weekend?' And I'm like woah I barely know you, this is weird. It's virtually impossible to establish rapport like that, whereas if I get to know someone say through my gymnastics class, then it's easier to become friends since we do have something in common to begin with. I suppose the message is "be professional, don't be creepy" - but they can't exactly phrase it like that!
DeleteYeah I get where they're coming from, I don't ask the prior speakers "hey how is your morning?" though I have had people connect with me on LinkedIn out of the blue who went to my undergrad institution and do that, and I just ignore them. When I talk to strangers on LinkedIn I keep it professional and only ask about potential jobs or career advice, but nothing personal like hobbies or interests.
DeleteHaha yeah, the organizers don't know me well either, so they can't make as strong a statement like "don't be creepy." But they do want me to ask, so they did say "if you have any questions about the company or internships, ask us and we'll ask them."
Exactly, it's a risk you take and I will be talking about an American guy I met in Dubai who came across as creepy and I still can't quite figure him out - I've had to change a lot of details to mask his identity of course as we'll probably be working with his company there but it is his creepy behaviour that I will talk about in the next post. Akan datang.
DeleteBtw, since you've been in the position of looking for interns before, what are they looking for in students when giving these talks?
DeleteWhoever this creep is must be very good at their job to survive that long in finance. Bad social skills will be weeded out.
The fact is we were always going to receive quality applicants, so it was more a question of, "if I was going to spend that many hours a day babysitting this intern, I had better pick someone who was interesting and fun to hang out with rather than feel like it is a real chore." What the American creep did was bizarre to say the least - he is very good at what he does of course. I had to add a whole paragraph dedicated to that bizarre interaction as an epilogue as I thought, this was one of the weirdest meetings I've ever had not just in Dubai but in my working life and I talked about my poker face reaction to something he did which was quite bizarre and he was trying to get a reaction out of me. Akan datang. No more TAR posts, but we had heavy snow last night into the early hours of this morning so I'm making the most of it this morning, look out for pics on Instagram very soon.
DeleteThanks for the advice. The talk is on Thursday so I'm gonna try to make a good impression. I hope they will find gymnastics or tennis interesting haha. Oh gosh I've just been so tired lately updating my resume and LinkedIn and looking for jobs. It's a real grind but I should be out by summer 2023.
DeleteNow I'm very curious as to what this American did. I just hope he wasn't rude at least. Yeah I saw the pics on Instagram. That's a lot of snow!
Creepy and rude are not the same thing! Akan datang.
DeleteIt was more a case of #toomuchinformation
DeleteI suppose its more just weird rather than malicious haha. Americans are very open though, not really reserved. As someone who has met people from every continent, I always found Americans to be the most open, but it can be weird to an Asian or European.
DeleteYes it doesn't make sense but I think that Ivan still has some insecurities about his humble beginnings. The whole mineral water fiasco was just to show off his newly gained wealth. It seems to be a common behaviour among many self-made people.
ReplyDeleteWell I don't think the mineral water thing was just for me, it was a way for him to flaunt his wealth to the staff of the hotel. Allow me to use an analogy: someone like Akila is traveling to Dubai on economy class whilst I got there in business class - nonetheless Ivan is definitely a first class passenger. Perhaps that just him trying to flex his muscles to assert his first class status over me, as I would never do something like that. Heck, especially when I can order any coffee I want at breakfast rather than pay for it at the pool. But that's why I'm not first class.
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