Working in Dubai

Working in the Philippines for 3 years made me think that I was already experienced enough to handle different situations at work...... guess what? I was wrong, working here in Dubai is a very different thing, you have to adjust to the culture of the country and its residents, including other expats ( Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Europeans, Moroccans, Syrian, Lebanese, etc. ) Working here is very different from working in the Philippines in many different ways:

Minimum Wage
As far as I know, there is no minimum wage law here in Dubai, what that means is the employer can actually pay as low as 1000 aed ( 11000 php ) to its employees, thats a very sad thing considering the cost of living here in Dubai. The average bed space rate here in Dubai is 700 aed, food will cost at around 300-450 aed for an average person, transportation would just be 1.50 aed/bus trip most of the time, it can go higher depending on the distance. If you want to live comfortably in Dubai, then you have to earn at least 3500 aed.

Transferring
For Expats, its very hard to transfer to another job if your residence visa is from the company, many expats come here in Dubai with visit visas, look for work then their residence visa gets processed by the company. When the company provides you the residence visa, that means you are tied to them, if you are planning to transfer to another company their would be a lot of complications, the company can ban you for a maximum of 1 year if they want to because you are under their sponsorship, if you plan to get tied up to a company in Dubai, make sure they are paying you well and most of all, make sure you are comfortable and happy.

Culture
Most people think that in Dubai, you will see a lot of Arabs, for the past 5 months, I have seen more expats than locals, especially Indians and Pakistanis, they literally are all over the place, it sometimes make me think twice if I am really in Dubai... hehehehe, I think the largest concentration of Filipinos in Dubai is in Al Satwa, its 5 minutes away from where I am staying by Taxi or 45 minutes walk, it doesn't make sense doesn't it? its only 5 minutes by taxi because most cars here run at least 80 kph. You can find great cultural diversity in Dubai. You have to learn to get along with other nationalities, trust me, every nationality has a certain good and bad traits.