#2 - Dubai Service Industry

There are lots of things service-related that this Canadian girl finds interesting in Dubai. In stream-of-consciousness order:

Shop hours are called "Timings". I don't know why I think this sounds funny, but I even laugh at myself when I call the pharmacy and ask, "What are your timings?"

You can get anything delivered to your home. You can call the local shop and have them deliver one can of Coke if you'd like. This is most tempting for me when I run out of milk, but I'm afraid if I call they will look for the oldest milk in the fridge and send that one. Once we were out of all mixes and had company coming, so we phoned for 6 cans each of Soda Water, Tonic, and Bitter Lemon (a wonderful concoction of tonic and lemonade). Five minutes later, a man arrived with six cans of soda, six cans of tonic, and six lemons. Oh well.

You can also have your laundry picked up at your home and returned to you cleaned and pressed. Laundry service is insanely cheap here, running about a dollar for a laundered and pressed dress shirt. This sounded like a dream in theory, but the shirts always seemed to come back smelling of damp and incense smoke, so Jim's taken to dropping his off at the dry cleaner's, for a much increased rate (but stink-free). There are dry-cleaners in our area who drop off cards advertising pick up and delivery, but we haven't had much luck communicating with them by telephone. (See future post on how everyone in Dubai speaks English, sort of). As an aside, I am acutely terrified by the sight of men teetering along on their bicycles in heavy traffic laden with plastic-wrapped shirts from the laundries.

The other thing to have delivered is food. Not just pizza and curry, either. I find it hilarious that you can get Burger King to deliver here. This would be way better for me if I actually liked Burger King. The food delivery men are nearly as terrifying on the roads as the laundry bikes; they weave in and out of cars on their tiny motorcycles with the insulated metal food boxes on the back. Thankfully, they usually wear helmets.

My favorite thing to have delivered is water for the dispenser. The five gallon jugs cost 7 dirhams, or $2, and they will deliver them to your door five minutes after you call. In our case, our apartment building keeps them on hand and a maintenance man will bring your bottles to you in a grocery cart. I love it!

Staffing of retail shops is also an interesting thing in Dubai. Now that I am working in the retail industry, I know for a fact that many shops (not ours) pay their retail staff 1,000-2,000 dirhams (less than $300-$600) a month, and full time is legislated to be 48 hours. I'm sure this seems like a lot to the people who come here for those jobs from Philippines and India, but Dubai is expensive. The low wages have a few consequences. For $300/month, you do not get very educated or well-trained staff. Stores seem to compensate for that by hiring way too many staff, none of whom will know what you mean when you ask for, say, Ginger Ale. I was once with a friend, the only customers in a 400 sq foot yogurt shop with no fewer than 12 people working there. In this case there were way too many of them, but they were all super nice and friendly, and the frozen yogurt was perfect. It all seems like in an investment in quantity over quality to me, and in fairness to the hapless underpaid staff in Dubai, they don't seem to be given much training, or much of a chance to succeed. This is certainly not true across the board, as there are many fine establishments who have well-trained and seemingly contented staff, but sadly it's not uncommon.

Also in shops, the staff have a tendency to follow the customers. This really makes me cranky, though I try to be understanding. I have realized (again from working in retail myself) that many local shoppers expect the staff to follow them around in case they have any questions. It still makes me crazy to be tailed like a teenaged shoplifter, though, and I have on occasion snapped at a camera/phone/shoe salesperson that "I am just looking, I will find you if I have any questions!"

My absolute favorite crazy thing about spending your money in Dubai is that no one ever has change. I totally get asking if you have 25 fils or a couple of dirhams (coins) when you are paying at the grocery store; it makes the change easier. Fine. What kills me is that taxis never have change for a 100 dirham note on a fare anywhere less than 50dhs. That's like not having change for a $20 bill if your taxi ride was six bucks. I've had cab drivers drive around asking other taxi drivers for change. Shops will be the same...Chloe and I went into a self-proclaimed pharmacy hypermarket, and they didn't have change for a 100 dirham note. This would all be fine if the ATM's dispensed 20's or 50's, but they usually give you 500 or 1,000 dirham notes, for which NO ONE has change. I've carried a 1,000 dirham note around in my wallet for days until I could get to a big grocery store, the liquor store, or even a bank. Luckily we keep a bag of coins here at home to pay for small things, like the water delivery. Sadly, we've paid for pizza in mostly coins! Luckily, the delivery guys never speak enough English to give us any crap about it.

#1 - Making Friends in Dubai

OK, now that it's been almost a YEAR since my last post, and I actually think of writing all the time, I'm going to get back to it. I promise.

I've been toying with writing a series...it started out (in my mind) as a sort of 10 Things You Never Knew About Dubai, but as the subject ideas were coming, it seemed like there could be an infinite number of topics.

So here goes, first in an indefinite series:

Things I Never Would Have Guessed About Dubai, #1

It's really hard to make friends

In my admittedly limited expat experience, Dubai has proven to be a very hard place to make close friends. To my mind, an expat posting puts a westerner in a foreign land where you quickly find the groups or clubs that allow you to meet the other foreigners posted there. You all band together, relying on each other for English conversation, information on how things work, how best to run your life in your new environment, and especially for an instant social circle. You quickly bond with your fellow strangers-in-a-strange-land, meet loads of new people and forge a few lasting friendships. You meet at coffee mornings, walking groups, book clubs, cultural interest groups, and in my case, knitting groups. You can ask the ones who've been there longer where to find soy milk/peanut butter/English books/yarn, and learn some tricks for navigating in your new milieu. You have a feeling of banding together and facing a complicated or challenging situation with comrades. That was my experience in Moscow, where my new peers showed me around the city and were always up for lunch dates, shopping excursions, park walks, and metro adventures. A year and half after leaving Moscow, I am still in touch with several women I met there and count them among my closest friends. Many of them have also left Moscow, because expats rarely stay there beyond a 2, 3 or five year posting.

Dubai is a different animal. I'd heard that expats far outnumbered locals here, and it's true. What I hadn't anticipated was that unlike with most expat postings, people stay in Dubai. Many for years and years, if not for their entire working lives. Expats buy homes, educate their children, and generally just move in here. Many of the ones who stay are Brits. The weather's great, there's lots of work, it's not far from home, and there's a great party scene (so I've heard). But the South Africans tend to stay for ages too, as do many Europeans. North Americans tend to only stay a few years, but lots of them are here long term as well. I've met lots of people who've married either locals or someone from a nearby Arab country. For them Dubai is either home for their spouse or an easier place to live than their spouses' countries, while still being a Muslim country in which to raise their children.

In terms of making new friends, the result is that when people are settled in a place for many years, they establish their circle of friends in the first year or two and then stick with them. It helps if you are here when your kids are little, since it's easy to make friends from the parent pool at school or at mom and tot groups, while it gets harder to make friends with your kids' parents when your kids are teenagers and never want you around them.

Still, I was surprised to realize that the city with far more expats had far less for expats to DO. There is a wonderful group called Expat Woman (www.expatwoman.com), and they hold coffee mornings around town. This is great, and a perfect place to meet people when you first arrive. I have met lovely people this way, but as a weekly activity, sitting around drinking coffee is not a long-term plan. I joined the American Women's Association (www.awadubai.org), having heard that they have interest groups and bi-monthly meetings. I've met some wonderful ladies through the Stitch Group and the Writer's Group, no complaints. Maybe if I were less of a chicken, I'd have braved more of their super-crowded and busy coffee mornings and possibly met more people. But I have to say, after the Moscow group with literally dozens of interest groups and clubs, the 5 or 6 clubs of the AWA was a bit of a let-down and the coffee mornings are downright scary.

I was thrilled to start working in January this year, it's really staved off the boredom I was sinking into in Dubai. It also helps me not stress about not having found a nice group of girlfriends to shop and explore with. Plus I'm busier, and so simultaneously less bored and less available (ie, less desperate).

All this said, I have made some dear friends here, even though some have already moved on. I've met a great number of interesting, nice women through work, coffee mornings, groups. I've forged a few valued friendships; the process of writing this down has made me realize how many. Maybe Dubai, City of Expats hasn't let me down after all.

Along with vowing to return to regular blog writing, I will also promise myself to take advantage of my few days off & call up a friend for lunch.