Should one be sufficiently misfortunate or unimaginative to be here that long you can join the lepers at the top of the payscale who did not receive the 3%. The basic pay is (remains?) 10135 pounds per month. The company then places a further 1520 pounds in your provident fund and if you so choose will give you 2500 pounds for housing. An appointment (training, etc) will give you a further 1270 pounds and flight pay in a "normal" month will give you 915 pounds.

That total is 15425 pounds monthly, tax free. For a nice shock, punch that into your tax calculator.

If you wish to work from a hard copy you can use my payslip....

£5,000 or £15,000 a month - neither is enough to waste the best years of your life in such a vacuous, plastic and inherently racist place as Dubai. Come and check it out for a couple of years by all means but long-term? Lack of imagination just about sums it up.

Maybe you should get out more adolf. I always find lots to do here in Dubai and it needn't cost a lot either! Most F/Os I fly with too seem happy and do lots on their (few) days off:ok::E

Lack of imagination is a phrase I would save for those that sit and stew in their villas or apartments and spend their miserable lives moaning about everything under the (hot) sun...

White Knight,

Glad to hear that you find Dubai such a stimulating place to live in. As it happens, I have wadi-bashed, been to Oman (Hatta, Fujeirah etc, etc) and Ski Dubai'd and Barasti'd with the best of them. My point is that one can exhaust both the limited genuine appeal of the region and Dubai's rather more superficial charms in fairly short order (18 months will have been plenty).

Fortunately, I am here for the adventure rather than the money so will not have to pretend to find it great while I sweat through (just one more) summer while sending money back to where I really want to live (sound familiar?).

I agree that that plenty of ex-pats are very happy with themselves and have all sorts of fun. I just happen to find most of them a tiny bit smug, unimaginative and somewhat indifferent to the plight of those workers who are shipped in to facilitate their comfortable existence for a pittance.

Still, as long as the sun is shining for you eh....

Constructive (?) Input please!
 

I have no doubt it is not for everyone. I'm simply trying to find out if it's worth pursuing a change to EK and moving to Dubai.

If you had your time over, would you make the move? :confused:

JT,

No I would not have made the move. Dubai is fake and dealing with the locals just raises your BP.

Hey, check out this book: Esc.ape from Dubai.
Lovely Place.

What may be paradise for one man, can easily be the opposite for another. If you are serious about moving to the UAE, then visit the place and have a look round as a potential resident, rather than a tourist.

We are all individuals and even more so in Dubai, in terms of how it suits us and what we do with our lives when we are not at work.

I know this is not a very helpful post (sorry!!!) but I would take what you read here with a sprinkle of salt added. Ones background and what they want out of life in Dubai will create an expectation of what they want. Such backgrounds and expectations will vary from person to person and can be surprisingly different in many ways.