Why? He didn't say anything bad or disrespectful about mosques or Ramadan. Just mentioned them.

Maybe he doesn't like the fact that ALL you get are mosques (while there are many temples of many religions in other big cities across the world) and the fact that you are not allowed to be seen eating and drinking in public during Ramadan (which usually means starvation and is dangerous if you are not used to it, especially in Dubai climate and especially if you are working 12 hours shift at the airport) although you are not fasting?

It was mentioned in a tone suggesting they are a nuisance to him and society along with the other things he listed as nuisances.

Was he making a list of the good things in the UAE when he mentioned them? No. I therefore rest my case as to what he was implying.

Implications are tricky things. Everyone comprehends them according their own projections. That's why I don't read implications. Just what is clearly said.

Anyway, he has the right not to like certain things and events. People's rights not to like something cannot be disgusting. They can only be arguable.

Xhamster. Brilliant post.
Momo95. It's called free speech. Remind us ignorant people how many refugees from Syria are now in the UAE? Too busy providing money to the terrorist groups there and Libya not to mention destroying infrastructure in Yemen. That is disgusting.

And Ramadan. Whilst i respect the law of the country I am residing in and I abide by it, I do found it a damn nuisance when the guy next to me chooses to fast (read NO WATER) during Summer Ramadan on a 4 sector duty commenced in the morning. Completely against the OM-A but it's what's done here and management can do nothing about it. As a passenger, if I knew my Captain and FO and CM are fasting (and it does happen that this is the case) I found this totally DISGUSTING.

I was bothered with that as well. Always wondered why I have to be woken up by it after long working hours. Why there is a mosque in a company's accommodation area anyway?

Xhamster, my hat off to you....
sums it up really well...... and for being away many moons ago, I can tell you it has gotten A LOT worse....
But if you think about it : these days, the next generation of pilots (with the majority of guys being hired now 25y or less) values 'likes' on their facebook account next to a shiny jet, next to their maxi Hummer v3.0, or in a beach club, MORE than living in a civilized country....And more and more of them come from f-u countries...

I have been here for over 12 years and I fully recognize myself in your post. Have to admit that there are some lovely locals to work or to fly with, but those are just people like me and you. But if you look up higher up the ladder, its all corrupted. Ask the people who have done a legal case here in the UAE against a local, higher up in the foodchain and ask what the outcome was....

The ME is nothing more than a sticky flytrap. Once you're caught, its damn hard to get out. I am now working on my exit for more than a year but with a family and being not of the 'new generation' it is damn hard and at times I am so exhausted that I don't have the energy to continue to work on the exit plan... More and more I wake up with the feeling I am nothing more than a prostitute needing the money and trapped inside by clever tactics by my employer.

ooh btw, if you google your name here in the UAE, you IP will most likely be added by the moral police of list of individuals to be monitored. Great find ;-)

Of course no one is forced here, however there are those who are misleaded, misguided and misinformed about what day to day life is REALLY like in the UAE as a pilot, and end up here only to think, after the honeymoon period is over (i.e. 3 months) 'WTF am I doing here'?

I think Laker mentioned it above, and I fully agree - if your lucky to get 2 days off in a row flying the narrow body fleet (one day was becoming the norm) then the first day is write-off because you are sleeping until 2PM, the 2nd day is a write-off because getting done what should be the simple things in life done like shopping, laundry etc, renewing something just takes the entire bloody day and generally, for most parts of the year, just zaps your energy.

Warranty
 

has anybody ever tried to get a waranty?
i bougth a computer monitor - unwraped it - installed it and ------ no working no.
somewhere else you would take it back to the shop, they will exchange and thats it.


in the UAE - I brought it back - they did not exchange it - they kept it, sent it in for repair (took 3 weeks) and thereafter I had a brand new out of the package repiared monitor - it was not replaced - repaired brand new

Great post xhamster. You obviously haven't been out long enough to wear some of the more bitter edges off :) but it'll come...I cannot argue with a word you say.

A word about the Ramadan/fasting thing...there are plenty of Muslim countries that don't make it a crime for non-Muslims to eat/drink publicly during Ramadan. It's got nothing to do with religion in the UAE, it's all about control...

to 5star, I hope you are able to escape while it is still by your own choice, and not in a box. You are absolutely right, that it is (by design) very difficult to exfiltrate cleanly. Just getting the required time off to pursue other opportunities is exceedingly hard, not to mention the lack of energy. I wish you well. All I can say is that there very much is a life beyond EK and the others.

xhamster

While I did have a snigger and agree with some of your frustrations, I have to ask what lit the fuse? What a rant 'buddy' and somewhat telling of your own ignorance.

Did you not realise, before you signed on the dotted line that Dubai was a Muslim Country (Mosques and Ramadan), located in the Middle East (hot temperatures & high humidity) that employs many migrant workers on low wages? Did you not realise that the UAE is a desert and arid land before you came or were you expecting the Lake district of rolling hills, dense forest and lakes?

Hour waiting for fuel? Don't run it on empty and be forced join the rush hour morons in the known garages that get busy. (... a 2 for Situational Awareness!)

Education allowance that covers most prestigious school in UK? The allowance is 72,000 dhs....not dollars! Research on your UK prestigious schools might surprise you.

Crap teachers? DC college have some of the best GCSE and A level results compared to the majority of UK schools. JESS Arabian Ranches ranks in the top percentage of schools achieving outstanding IB results.

Chemically treated seawater from bottles? Masafi water comes from Masafi, not from the sea. It's as clean as anything else in the World, probably more so than the highly chlorinated tap water in the US.

Address system? Who cares, mail arrives to my employers address and I'm advised by email whenever something needs collecting. Saves on tons of flyers dropping through my letter box every day like my friends back in UK.

Maid issues? Don't have one. Never have, never will.

Woken up by Mosque? I guess that's a problem if you live near one but you could always fork out 5% to a useless agent to move.

Stench of 300 sweating feet as you drive past the above mentioned Mosque? Well, do what I do and leave the windows up on the BMW X6 with the recirc fan on. The wife will not tolerate having her Chanel dress and Hermes handbag being impregnated with the smell of manual labour on the way to afternoon tea...at the Ritz!

Sure, this place has it's problems, plenty of them and some are getting worse, no doubt about it. You've highlighted several and I don't disagree. However, a lot of what frustrated you is avoidable. While you castigate the Dubai elite and its establishment, you yourself joined it. You're disgusted at the treatment afforded to it's lower class of citizens yet looked down on them yourself with your demeaning comments of smelling like rubbish and calling you mam/sir. How many times did you respond back with a 'good morning?' How often did you offer the engineer a bottle of water and sit down when he came in the flight deck? How often did you offer to pay for the phone card for the labourer in the check out que? How many times did you offer the J class toilet back to the smelly taxi driver that hasn't seen his family in over a year and works 6, 12 hour days a week?

Personally, I'd take that any day over a 'f**k off' from a group of teenagers outside a UK shopping precinct, or a 'give me your wallet' as you walk through Brooklyn at night or maybe just a shot in the head for a few Rand or Real in South Africa or Brasil.

I too can go on and on but I've chosen to stay. Because I'm happy here. Horses for courses and all that......

Harry

Be careful, being happy is a crime in this business ;)

That's a pretty repulsive statement Harry. I'm guessing you have "committed to destination" and are trying to make the best of it. But for someone just joining remember that your friends back home are probably privately snickering at the Facebook shots of champagne in business class or 'afternoon tea at the Ritz.' Nobody is impressed and you are giving up your 20's, 30's, 40's to drive a X6 back and forth to the mall.

Harry is the master of red herring.

Like offering a bottle of water to someone will resolve slavery issues.

Maybe you give a bottle of water to someone and feel like you saved the world, Harry, but I have to tell you, in case you are not aware of it - it's just a way to clean your conscience because your are happy at the place where so many people suffer.

Harry - brother from another. Well spoken.
The hamster is right in some of his statements, but what a rant showcasing his own ignorance. Keep up the good work, old chap.
And Nikita. Molim te, lolo. Giving a bottle of water to someone that might benefit from it is ALWAYS good. Dobro?

And Laker. Seriously?
Try to re-read what Harry wrote. And then think. Then think some more. Now, are you more amused than repulsed?

Nikita81

I have no need to clean my conscience. Coming from a regime that ethnically 'cleansed' those that were different is something you'll be familiar with no doubt but I will not hold you personally responsible for those atrocities in the same way that you should not crtitisize me for helping others.

Those on lowly wages come from desperate backgrounds and from communities that rely on their salaries. The Indian/Pakistani/Philipine governments don't feel guilty so why the hell should I? If they did, perhaps they'd foster a culture of state welfare and support for their own people rather than allowing them to become exploited by other Countries. It's life and the sooner you can accept that the better. How are Mexican's treated in the US or Black maids in exclusive suburbs of Capetown? Wherever we go in this unfair World we encounter inequality but that doesn't stop any of us from treating people with respect and courtesy. xhamster is guilty of this, I highlighted that fact and now you try to twist those facts. Don't! Get off you high moral horse and criticise those that are guilty of disrespecting others, not those that support them in whatever little way they can. Not because they feel guilty, but because they want to. Simple as that!

LAKER

Is it really that difficult to see sarcasm?

Harry

@Harry

But you don't know if xhamster is treating people with courtesy or not, you just made your whole point around the made up fact that he doesn't because it suits you.

Nobody denies your right to be happy, so why you deny xhamster's right to be unhappy? Is it because you are not here to convince us that you are happy, but to convince yourself?

Also, don't ever try to give me ethnic cleansing bull****. You are actually behaving in the same way any 1st world government (British, German and American, especially) behaves: covering their own war crimes and exploitation of the 3rd world countries, devastating people and their countries (countries which you actually mentioned here) making them work for lousy money and in inhumane conditions (just so that you can have your luxurious way of life), by accussing everyone else of doing what they actually do.

My country wasn't the one throwing uranium filled bombs on a European country, and then buying all its companies and institutions after completely destroying its infrastructure and society.

Ethnic cleansing was happening on both sides (like in any war). It's just that your government chose to serve you one side of the story, because they had an economic and marketing interest in that. Or shall we say - if it wasn't for your 1st world's governments I would never find myself in Dubai, working my ass off for coins because my country would be strong and rich.

So, you see Harry, you are guilty. Guilty of being happy. Because your happiness is directly based on my misery. Or misery of any Pakistani, Syrian or Afghan. Or do you really think you deserved everything you have with your hard work?

You are a good provoker as well. Shame that most forum moderators can't see that.

Nisam rekla da nije dobro, već da ne spasava svet. Zamenio si teze.

Harry old chap, you cannot sit there behind your keyboard and accuse me of being guilty of disrespect and discourtesy without knowing the facts:

All the time

All the time, even used to give him access to the sandwich platter.

Never but I used to tip a hell of alot.

Not sure what you mean by this, but I have given staff travel to some not so fortunate types in the sandpit.

So I ask you: on what basis do you believe you can call me disrespectful and discourteous? Because of my smelly shoe comment?? Read my post again. I am merely stating fact and experience. So for this I give you a 2 for knowledge!

EKorBust - I'd be happy to showcase my ignorance if it helps someone gain a better understanding how life is over there. I am not that selfish buddy.