Tonight I was pleasantly surprised by my very first pay check. I am to be paid at the end of each month, however thursday is the national holiday so my company was nice enough to pay us now. This is my first official pay, and although its inflated with my relocation allowance, its still a surprise seeing the dinars roll in.
Also its wonderful not to have 20%-30% of your pay check deducted in taxes. When I was back home I never minded because I never had a choice. Here in Kuwait there are zero taxes. The trade off is that there is no garbage collection, no health care (nothing good anyways), no road or city up keep. The local government does infuse LOTS of money into things but its not done democratically.
What was the first thing I had to do with all that money....spend it!
Tonight I got to feel truly like a grown up and buy a fridge, washer, dryer. In all my years of living on my own I have never had to buy those things. I have been doing my homework at all the appliance shops and chose wisely. The brand names are different over here, but the features on each one were things I recognized. I got all 3 things for 283KD. To me that sounded like a real steal until I did the exchange rate. YIKES! it ended up being close to $1000 (easy come, easy go). The cool thing is that my building Harris will take the delivery and have everything hooked up for me while I am travelling.
Speaking of travel.... I finally get to go to Dubai! and help the team over there. I got my passport/residency so now I am allowed to leave the country. The Dubai store is 20 days till grand opening and the excitement is building. The WSI teams arrive March 3rd- it will be wonderful to see everyone and share how great this experience has been so far. I'll be leaving Friday and returning the following saturday. (yeah! for alcohol too!)
hope to sqeeze in one more post before Friday....ching ching!
February 23, 2010
February 18, 2010
everyone's a little bit.....
There is a musical called "Avenue Q". For those of you lucky to have seen it or Youtube'd their songs, you'll remember the one that goes....
"everyone's just a little bit racist,sometimes. We're all alittle bit racist, if we could all just admit, even just a little bit."
I have been living this song over the past week in regards to hiring our staff. The "big bosses" have decided to limit our racial mix so that our customers feel more "comfortable" shopping in the store. When we started 2 weeks ago with hiring, "Joshpet" and I were planning to recreate the Disney Smallworld ride within our stores. But then the bosses got involved and quickly veto'd the majority of nationalities living/working in Kuwait.
After being given the list of acceptable nationalities (thank god Canada made the list!), it was truly discouraging to have some one turn up and have to send them away not because of their qualification but because they didnt "look" right. I'll admit that several times this week I went to my bosses and vented about how unfair the company was being with great staff I wanted on board. I am usually the crusader of lost causes- this is as lost as Atlantis.
As the week progressed, I noticed I started to make generalizations about people and their nationallity too. For instance, the majority of Lebanese men flirted with me all through the interview (hoping to score more than just the job?), Egyptians use the word "yanny" ALL THE TIME, with Arabs its "inshallah, inshallah", Indian candidates will say anything they think you want to hear in order to get the job, Filipino people were the most serviant, etc.....
I hate myself for thinking these thoughts. I hate that in an interview with, lets say...and Egyptian, I am counting the "yanny's" in my head as the candidate is answering my questions. BTW- highest yanny count is 17 in one interview answer. If I was back in Canada I would have been fired for intentionally stacking my staff in one nationality. Here, the first question we ask a candidate when they apply is "where are you from".
So lessoned learnt- everyone is racist. And at PB/PBK: diversity is a term best not mentioned at the theme park.
"everyone's just a little bit racist,sometimes. We're all alittle bit racist, if we could all just admit, even just a little bit."
I have been living this song over the past week in regards to hiring our staff. The "big bosses" have decided to limit our racial mix so that our customers feel more "comfortable" shopping in the store. When we started 2 weeks ago with hiring, "Joshpet" and I were planning to recreate the Disney Smallworld ride within our stores. But then the bosses got involved and quickly veto'd the majority of nationalities living/working in Kuwait.
After being given the list of acceptable nationalities (thank god Canada made the list!), it was truly discouraging to have some one turn up and have to send them away not because of their qualification but because they didnt "look" right. I'll admit that several times this week I went to my bosses and vented about how unfair the company was being with great staff I wanted on board. I am usually the crusader of lost causes- this is as lost as Atlantis.
As the week progressed, I noticed I started to make generalizations about people and their nationallity too. For instance, the majority of Lebanese men flirted with me all through the interview (hoping to score more than just the job?), Egyptians use the word "yanny" ALL THE TIME, with Arabs its "inshallah, inshallah", Indian candidates will say anything they think you want to hear in order to get the job, Filipino people were the most serviant, etc.....
I hate myself for thinking these thoughts. I hate that in an interview with, lets say...and Egyptian, I am counting the "yanny's" in my head as the candidate is answering my questions. BTW- highest yanny count is 17 in one interview answer. If I was back in Canada I would have been fired for intentionally stacking my staff in one nationality. Here, the first question we ask a candidate when they apply is "where are you from".
So lessoned learnt- everyone is racist. And at PB/PBK: diversity is a term best not mentioned at the theme park.
happy anny to me
As promised.....
Happy anniversary to me, happy anniversary to me...I have officially been in Kuwait for 1 month! I'm actually liking the city very much. The people I work with are FAB (a British slang), the weather has been mild, the food good (almost too good- I've gained weight), my bosses are wonderful, and Kuwait isnt nearly as "foreign" or "rough" as I was expecting in the Middle East.
What I miss most is my friends and family. I miss having daily text chats and phone calls when a crisis at work hit. I also miss the ease of GOING out with those friends and seeing movies, plays, the city, etc... My American co-workers miss the booze, but I miss just "doing stuff".
Speaking of Booze...... I broke down last night at the grocery store and bought this (see photo)
For those who cant quite see clearly, its the FRE ("free") NON- ALCOHOLIC wine. I hear you yelling "Whats the point!?"- but I was desperate for the feel of a glass of red wine in my hand after a long day at work. So I take my "wine" home, settle in for the evening- excited that I will try to imagine the taste of real wine. But in true Amanda fashion- I dont have a cork screw!! and what's worse, its not like there's an LCBO around the corner that I can buy it from. They dont even sell cork screws at IKEA here! Imagine me upset that I couldn't open my bottle of non-alcoholic wine....go ahead and laugh, I know I did. Its all for the best apparently, as I was told that wines like this always taste aweful. I still need to find a corkscrew though-- one day I hope to have blackmarket hooch!
So my bottle of FRE is sitting on my counter mocking me.
(note the arabic on the label- it roughly translates to: HA,HA,HA take that Amanda!!!)
*NOTE: as of Feb19th- bought a corkscrew- tried the wine- and everyone was right, the wine IS aweful!
Happy anniversary to me, happy anniversary to me...I have officially been in Kuwait for 1 month! I'm actually liking the city very much. The people I work with are FAB (a British slang), the weather has been mild, the food good (almost too good- I've gained weight), my bosses are wonderful, and Kuwait isnt nearly as "foreign" or "rough" as I was expecting in the Middle East.
What I miss most is my friends and family. I miss having daily text chats and phone calls when a crisis at work hit. I also miss the ease of GOING out with those friends and seeing movies, plays, the city, etc... My American co-workers miss the booze, but I miss just "doing stuff".
Speaking of Booze...... I broke down last night at the grocery store and bought this (see photo)
So my bottle of FRE is sitting on my counter mocking me.
(note the arabic on the label- it roughly translates to: HA,HA,HA take that Amanda!!!)
*NOTE: as of Feb19th- bought a corkscrew- tried the wine- and everyone was right, the wine IS aweful!
February 16, 2010
writers block
Hello out there.
I know I have been remiss for not writing but there has been so many small things happening that I havent been able to focus on one big enough to write about. I have been ranting about the driving skills here and the difficulties hiring staff to any of my coworkers who will listen.( guess what my blog will rant about!)
So I promise over the next 2 days to have 2 new posts added (this one excluded). Stay tuned, it will be worth the wait.
:)
I know I have been remiss for not writing but there has been so many small things happening that I havent been able to focus on one big enough to write about. I have been ranting about the driving skills here and the difficulties hiring staff to any of my coworkers who will listen.( guess what my blog will rant about!)
So I promise over the next 2 days to have 2 new posts added (this one excluded). Stay tuned, it will be worth the wait.
:)
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