Don't call me "Shirley"
There's no joking when it comes to money, actually! Low pay, like warm beer,
is something I am perfectly serious about.
The reason I ask is that I had noticed an influx of people from South Africa who seem to be quite happy to make about $4,500 USD per month, when that was, to me, about half what I expected. Of course, as noted, my expectations were probably warped by years with one, rather high-paying operator. Too, I have been out of there for almost two years now, hence the question.
Not to talk out of school, but my current contract has been a real wake-up call. I only get half-decent money for time on-site. Otherwise it is not enough to worry about. Every operator in Nigeria that I worked for paid the same for time on and time off, of course.
Almost everything else has been so much better it just isn't funny. The people are generally young and friendly rather than old, bitter and twisted. The aircraft are freshly renovated or else fairly new (depending on type). The food in Hassi Messaoud is excellent. Out in the desert it is fresh and well-cooked, but the selection is very limited, either chicken or steak except for Friday, which is "Cous-cous Day." No pork chops, of course....
Security is a bit dodgy, I think. Every so often the bad guys gang up and over-run some remote installation, doing the usual rape and pillage number. If you compare that to the day-in, day-out risks of Lagos for instance, then I would think the desert is safer, but you couldn't really call it safe.
The weather in the desert is a bitch! Sandstorms, extreme heat (50°, when the throttles are hot like holding a fresh cup of coffee), shifting crosswinds, low viz in blowing sand and dust haze... Nigeria, even Harmattan, is easier.
ATC is a real pain, but in a very different way from Nigeria. They don't try to give you a hard time, but you do get a hard time. Forget the idea of getting assistance from ATC.
As some of you have probably found, it's very difficult to down-shift to lower wages. My wife still spends like a drunken sailor, so that I transfer the stuff and the next time I check the local account is nearly empty. It doesn't go on fripperies but on maintaining a typical middle-class German lifestyle, when I really don't get to take part in that.
Here, 'cost-cutting' means things such as buying a used BMW 330Ci rather than a new one and taking two weeks holiday in Sweden and Estonia instead of the States. When you think about what life is like for the average citizen of wherever, this is not really grounds to feel disadvantaged, but don't try telling that to a German!
Hey, "Life is unfair," as Jimmy Carter once pointed out to one of his disadvantaged, Black, female constituents. What is a boy to do, except to suck it up and go for an offer of more work back in dear old Nigeria?
I have been trying to figure out which way things are going in terms of "You pay peanuts, you get monkeys" versus "We have a stack of resumés THIS high." You hear the first one from the line slime and the second from the management, when the truth is somewhere in-between, I suppose.
I noted with interest that many people where I now work absolutely refuse to consider working in Nigeria, no matter how much it pays. Well, one guy did get "arréssed" when he had to make a precautionary landing on a ferry flight in a crop-duster. They thought he was a spy and locked him up for a few weeks in Calabar, just in case. Now everyone has heard the story and thinks Nigeria is some sort of horrible place. Of course the news doesn't exactly help to dispel that image.
Too, the Company has absolutely no interest in operating in Nigeria. They try to avoid using bribery, or so they tell me. How far could you get not doing that as a new entrant to the market? "Just asking," mind you.
PsS. As I was writing and posting this the previous post from ETB had appeared. There is nothing that I wrote here meant to contradict what he posted, which appears to be right on the mark. If I had read it first I would probably have written something a bit different.