# New job- Desperately seeking your opinion



## Minamiller (Jan 10, 2014)

Hi 
I started a new job on Jan 4th with the following salary.
10,000 aed per month (was told plus 1-2% commission on business revenue)
650 petrol
Health benefits etc

The day I started when signing the offer letter I asked about the commission as it wasn't stated in the letter and was told the CEO will speak about that. So in my meeting with the CEO the first day nothing was mentioned. I decided to wait and see until the end of the week. My title originally was supposed to be a business development manager but within the first week was changed to international business operation executive. They also operate 6 days a week which wasn't mentioned before. On Thursday I had a meeting with the CEO and asked about the commission. First he said here in Dubai is different. It's not like Canada or US that every thing has to be in writing. Here we all trust each other. If I tell you something then I mean it. He said he had a guy who he hired in the states who was paid six figures and asked for a company cc for travel but was using company cc for personal purchases and that he cost him $350,000 that year. So he doesn't want to make the same mistake blah blah.. The company is bleeding right now, it's not making any money. But if I stay and make the company successful, I will in turn be very successful.
He's already introduced me to all of his international clients and am scheduled to travel to Europe and Australia starting next month.


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## BedouGirl (Sep 15, 2011)

Honestly? Don't give them your papers to process. They've lied to you about the number of days a week you have to work, changed your job title and now they won't give you details of your commission structure in writing. Do you really think they're telling you the truth about everything else? What would YOUR advice be to someone who told you all of this? The fact that you need to post this on the forum speaks for itself....


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## Minamiller (Jan 10, 2014)

Papers are already given. Ive asked a few friends who were born here and they are saying this nationality is the most trusted. They're East Indian. I'm here to get everyone's views on this as I trust several members here who have really helped me in the past.




BedouGirl said:


> Honestly? Don't give them your papers to process. They've lied to you about the number of days a week you have to work, changed your job title and now they won't give you details of your commission structure in writing. Do you really think they're telling you the truth about everything else? What would YOUR advice be to someone who told you all of this? The fact that you need to post this on the forum speaks for itself....


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## QOFE (Apr 28, 2013)

If you haven't got it in writing, don't expect anything and trust they will be paying you. That basic salary is very low and in fact quite demeaning for somebody with your experience. Six days instead of five days is not really acceptable. 
Won't you be needing some kind of company credit card or cash for your business travels or how are they arranging it?


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## Stevesolar (Dec 21, 2012)

Hi,
Be careful when going on overseas trips with them.
It is very common for companies in this region to get you to book the flights and hotels on your credit card and then refund you through your expenses - or not, as the case may be!
In your new position with this company, please ensure that your company pays for your flights, pre-pays for your hotels and gives you a "float" - say $1000 to cover meals, taxis etc.
Under no circumstances should you pay for the travel/hotel out of your pocket.
If they wont do the above - then it is another reason to leave or look for another job.
Best of luck
Steve


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## Minamiller (Jan 10, 2014)

Thank you all for your comments as they are all good suggestions and feedbacks. There has been a few other red flags which made me take caution. Last Thursday I had a meeting at 8 with CEO which he couldn't make but later asked that we meet later in the afternoon. We met at 2:00 Pm until 6:00 but since there were more things to discuss he asked that we meet the next day (Friday). He is leaving the country for a while. He wanted me to come in for several hours to the office. I politely rejected and said I'm able to meet online as I have prior plans. He agreed to this but later asked if we had connectivity issues if I could meet at his house (home office). I said I'm sure there won't be any connectivity issues and left. This made me feel very uncomfortable. Is this a norm here? It sure isn't in Canada.


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## Roxtec Blue (Jan 14, 2013)

Minamiller said:


> Thank you all for your comments as they are all good suggestions and feedbacks. There has been a few other red flags which made me take caution. Last Thursday I had a meeting at 8 with CEO which he couldn't make but later asked that we meet later in the afternoon. We met at 2:00 Pm until 6:00 but since there were more things to discuss he asked that we meet the next day (Friday). He is leaving the country for a while. He wanted me to come in for several hours to the office. I politely rejected and said I'm able to meet online as I have prior plans. He agreed to this but later asked if we had connectivity issues if I could meet at his house (home office). I said I'm sure there won't be any connectivity issues and left. This made me feel very uncomfortable. Is this a norm here? It sure isn't in Canada.


It certainly isn't the norm here and at best, an extremely unprofessional way of working. Who knows what it is at worst. Personally, I would keep any meetings to companies premises during normal work hours. Preferably when others are around until your have a good understanding of the company and your new CEO. Good luck.:fingerscrossed:


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## Froglet (May 7, 2014)

If you have this amount of strange encounters already after one week of working there, I'm sure there is a lot more to come... So, you have two options: deal with it OR leave. I'd go for the second...

I know you have been out of work for quite a while, but doing what you're doing now is not adding much to you professionally or personally... I understand that now you're making some money, but ask yourself whether putting up with all of this is actually worth what they pay you at the end of the month..


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## Mr Rossi (May 16, 2009)

**Everything** about this is the cliched rubbish that people who've been here longer while have heard about or even experienced.

Chances are you they'll stop your basic salary soon enough and feed you lines about the boss needs to sign the cheques and he's away.


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## Gavtek (Aug 23, 2009)

It's the oldest trick in the book, verbally promise someone something then don't follow through. 

Then have a massive grin on your face when they realise and confront you because you know there's nothing they can do about it and if they call you a liar or a cheat or a crook, you can have them arrested.

Bonus points if they tell you "no problem, no problem" when you go to them with a concern but haven't yet finished telling them what your concern is.


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## arabianhorse (Nov 13, 2013)

For someone who is a senior executive (business development?), you seem very naive when it comes to your personal commercial interests.

Send me 100k and I'll give you a job on a 1 year contract that pays $50k


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## Val_TX (Mar 16, 2012)

I'm dealing with a (nationality omitted) HR department and the consensus is, if their lips are moving, they are lying. Like all cultures, this doesn't apply to everyone. I agree though, none of this sounds good. You should never pay your travel expenses out of pocket. Get everything in writing. 

I'm dealing with a multinational company "with 18,000 employees around the globe" and I'm still getting this crap. I'm this close to walking away. You should never stop your job search until you have a signed contract with a start date. I have other options and I guess I have to go with plan B.


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## arabianhorse (Nov 13, 2013)

Val_TX said:


> I'm dealing with a (nationality omitted) HR department and the consensus is, if their lips are moving, they are lying. Like all cultures, this doesn't apply to everyone. I agree though, none of this sounds good. You should never pay your travel expenses out of pocket. Get everything in writing.
> 
> I'm dealing with a multinational company "with 18,000 employees around the globe" and I'm still getting this crap. I'm this close to walking away. You should never stop your job search until you have a signed contract with a start date. I have other options and I guess I have to go with plan B.


With that atitude towards certain nationalities, best you walk away and head back to the US son.
Its like saying, I'm not racist, but ...


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## Val_TX (Mar 16, 2012)

I don't have that attitude towards any nationality. I have documented facts on which I have been lied to. However, I attended in good faith a meeting where I was honest and they lied. Kind of hard to negotiate. 

I said, it doesn't apply universally. However, for example, some cultures will agree to something and then not agree, it is because for them, confrontation of any sort is not acceptable. That's not racist, that's about understanding all the different cultures that we deal with here.

Returning to my home country would be great. Too bad I can't get a decent salary there as I compete with lower cost H1B visa holders. Typical salary discussion there: we offer you $X for 30 years experience, with X=1.2 *typical starting salary of university graduate. Me: no thank you. Company to congress : no Americans will accept our job offer. Therefore we must hire an H1B visa worker. I have confirmed this through public record of H1B workers assigned to particular companies in the USA

As usual the Expat Forum police strike again.


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## Beamrider (May 18, 2012)

So many red flags... I would cut all links with them (check if it's a LLC and if you would incur in a labour ban, just in case). The salary is quite low, and 2% on commission... I really hope your sales pipeline is strong enough.

Good luck.


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## Minamiller (Jan 10, 2014)

I agree it's not racism, it's a fact. I'm the only foreigner in the entire building. Everyone is from India. One thing that truly annoys me is how much he complains and makes fun of the way we do thing in North america. That everything needs to be in writing and that no one trusts one another. Whereas here, they all trust each other so there's no need for signed agreements and such. Here life is perfect and as long as you obey the law and don't say anything about the ruler, it is the perfect place to be. There you can say whatever you want to the president without getting into any trouble. I said well obviously there are pros and cons to both countries but I prefer to have those signed agreements and freedom of speech. Without the signed agreement I wouldn't be guessing how much or would I be getting paid at all. Without those rules and code of conducts you wouldn't dare invite me over to your house to work.


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## BedouGirl (Sep 15, 2011)

Let's take nationalities and mentions of rulers/government out of this scenario because, at the end of the day, it's the policies and procedures of an organization we are discussing and we are all foreigners here after all. At the end of the day, are they professional? That's the question here. Will they live up to their promises? Mina, I go back to the question I asked you originally. If you were asked/told all this by someone else, what would you say to them? What sort of advice would you give them?


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## newguyintown (Mar 15, 2012)

Minamiller said:


> I agree it's not racism, it's a fact. I'm the only foreigner in the entire building. Everyone is from India. One thing that truly annoys me is how much he complains and makes fun of the way we do thing in North america. That everything needs to be in writing and that no one trusts one another. Whereas here, they all trust each other so there's no need for signed agreements and such. Here life is perfect and as long as you obey the law and don't say anything about the ruler, it is the perfect place to be. There you can say whatever you want to the president without getting into any trouble. I said well obviously there are pros and cons to both countries but I prefer to have those signed agreements and freedom of speech. Without the signed agreement I wouldn't be guessing how much or would I be getting paid at all. Without those rules and code of conducts you wouldn't dare invite me over to your house to work.


I think you mean you were the only white person in the building. Being from India, I can confirm this is not how things work back in India or even at all of the non-shady organizations here. Everything needs to be in writing, contracts/agreements need to be signed by all the parties. More so for jobs which provide commission based salaries! I think it's better if we don't get into the whole 'freedom of speech' thing, we were all (well most of us) aware what we were getting into while moving here.


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## BedouGirl (Sep 15, 2011)

newguyintown said:


> I think you mean you were the only white person in the building. Being from India, I can confirm this is not how things work back in India or even at all of the non-shady organizations here. Everything needs to be in writing, contracts/agreements need to be signed by all the parties. More so for jobs which provide commission based salaries! I think it's better if we don't get into the whole 'freedom of speech' thing, we were all (well most of us) aware what we were getting into while moving here.


Again, please stick to the reason this thread is here. Let's stay away from unrelated matters PLEASE!


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## arabianhorse (Nov 13, 2013)

This whole thread is a bit suss.

Pull the other leg Mina


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## msbettyboopdxb (Mar 22, 2009)

Val_TX said:


> I'm dealing with a (nationality omitted) HR department and the consensus is, if their lips are moving, they are lying. Like all cultures, this doesn't apply to everyone. .


What an odd comment....


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## msbettyboopdxb (Mar 22, 2009)

BedouGirl said:


> Again, please stick to the reason this thread is here. Let's stay away from unrelated matters PLEASE!


I concur.


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## msbettyboopdxb (Mar 22, 2009)

Minamiller said:


> Hi I started a new job on Jan 4th with the following salary. 10,000 aed per month (was told plus 1-2% commission on business revenue) 650 petrol Health benefits etc The day I started when signing the offer letter I asked about the commission as it wasn't stated in the letter and was told the CEO will speak about that. So in my meeting with the CEO the first day nothing was mentioned. I decided to wait and see until the end of the week. My title originally was supposed to be a business development manager but within the first week was changed to international business operation executive. They also operate 6 days a week which wasn't mentioned before. On Thursday I had a meeting with the CEO and asked about the commission. First he said here in Dubai is different. It's not like Canada or US that every thing has to be in writing. Here we all trust each other. If I tell you something then I mean it. He said he had a guy who he hired in the states who was paid six figures and asked for a company cc for travel but was using company cc for personal purchases and that he cost him $350,000 that year. So he doesn't want to make the same mistake blah blah.. The company is bleeding right now, it's not making any money. But if I stay and make the company successful, I will in turn be very successful. He's already introduced me to all of his international clients and am scheduled to travel to Europe and Australia starting next month.


There's a lot of things wrong with your scenario. It is not true that around here everything is done with word of mouth. Changing your job title, working 6 days a week, refusal to put commission offer in writing - things they never mentioned before are all giant big red flags. Personally, I would walk away. Additionally, would you want to work for a company where no one noticed an employee run up personal purchases on a company credit card till it was 350k???? 😳. It's all just sounds so off.


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## 132467 (Aug 2, 2012)

Minamiller said:


> Papers are already given. Ive asked a few friends who were born here and they are saying this nationality is the most trusted. They're East Indian. I'm here to get everyone's views on this as I trust several members here who have really helped me in the past.


Certain nationalities and backgrounds work in different ways, this is especially true if you are working in a company where the majority of your colleagues have similar nationalities/backgrounds that share common ideology.

You may find some of the practices they might partake in to be unethical or shady and that might and might not be true, but to them this is how they get work done.

In some cultures/companies, it is okay for an employee not to show up to work on time, leave early, and be completely responsible for his or her work whether he or she is at the office or not, as long as that employee provides good results.

Whereas in other cultures/companies, what determines a good employee is how little sleep he or she gets, spends more time in the office than needed (works more than 6 days a week) and never goes on vacation.

I personally hate the second option, and try to stay away from these companies that seem to want to make each and every employee squeeze blood out of a stone, especially since most of the time, they tend to pay very little compared to other, more "humanitarian" companies.

You will be surprised however, to learn there are some people who can only provide results that way (the second way) and provide terrible results if done otherwise. (sometimes they become detrimental to the company as well)

This is why it is sometimes necessary for such companies to exist.

If this is the first job you land in UAE, you were pretty unlucky, and I believe you are going to be very unhappy and frustrated with whats to come, given that the company you work for makes fun of practices that take place in the most developed countries on earth.


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## sm105 (Jan 9, 2014)

Minamiller said:


> Papers are already given. Ive asked a few friends who were born here and they are saying this nationality is the most trusted. They're East Indian. I'm here to get everyone's views on this as I trust several members here who have really helped me in the past.


There are plenty of Indians that I would trust with my life. There are also plenty of Indians I wouldn't trust to wash my car. Nationality really has nothing to do with it. My advice here, from my personal experiences as an expat working in multiple cross-cultural environments, is that you must be comfortable with the role you are taking on and the people you are working with. 

I've been in a similar situation in Africa where I was the only expat working with 100+ locals, but I enjoyed the job and the interaction with them - wound up working there for 5+ years and made many lifelong friends from among my colleagues. On the flip side, I was also on a project a few years ago where I was the only senior manager who wasn't Chinese. At the end of each day, I came away frustrated with the interactions I was having with my colleagues - the language barriers, cultural expectations and work ethics simply didn't gel. It was one of the happiest days when I achieved a performance target and I was able to enforce a bonus/buyout clause to exit the company on good terms.

From what you are describing, you have doubts about the company's bonafide intentions. That lack of trust will not solve itself - it will continue to fester and eventually cause you a bigger problem at a most inopportune time. You need to confront it now to YOUR satisfaction, even at the risk of offending the boss (if your requests offend him, it may be a good sign that the company is not a good fit for you anyway). Obfuscating and hoping to be comforted by third parties' interpretation of someone else's intent over the internet is simply kicking the problem down the road, not solving it.

If you are not good at personal confrontations, write an email to the boss setting out what you are uncomfortable with and what you would like to see him do to reassure you. How he responds to that will give you a good indication of whether there is compatibility there.

Finally, there is no shame in mutually concluding after a few weeks that a job is not a good fit for you and that you are not a good fit for the job. Learn from it and move on. That's life.


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## taliacottage (Dec 2, 2014)

sm105 said:


> There are plenty of Indians that I would trust with my life. There are also plenty of Indians I wouldn't trust to wash my car. Nationality really has nothing to do with it. My advice here, from my personal experiences as an expat working in multiple cross-cultural environments, is that you must be comfortable with the role you are taking on and the people you are working with.
> 
> I've been in a similar situation in Africa where I was the only expat working with 100+ locals, but I enjoyed the job and the interaction with them - wound up working there for 5+ years and made many lifelong friends from among my colleagues. On the flip side, I was also on a project a few years ago where I was the only senior manager who wasn't Chinese. At the end of each day, I came away frustrated with the interactions I was having with my colleagues - the language barriers, cultural expectations and work ethics simply didn't gel. It was one of the happiest days when I achieved a performance target and I was able to enforce a bonus/buyout clause to exit the company on good terms.
> 
> ...


Amen!


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## Froglet (May 7, 2014)

Any new recent developments Mina? Have you made up your mind?


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## Minamiller (Jan 10, 2014)

Froglet said:


> Any new recent developments Mina? Have you made up your mind?


Yes actually many. I have had meetings with HR 3 times and with CEO's wife today. I just got home but will write the updates shortly.


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## A.Abbass (Jun 28, 2014)

I don't get it how someone on such a title cannot make out very obvious and simple things, I don't also understand how someone with such a title is paid 10K AED ?

I am sorry but all the questions seem to me arising from a fresh graduate who is getting hired for the first time.

And is eastern Indian a nationality now ? wow


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## pamela0810 (Apr 5, 2010)

A.Abbass said:


> I don't get it how someone on such a title cannot make out very obvious and simple things, I don't also understand how someone with such a title is paid 10K AED ?
> 
> I am sorry but all the questions seem to me arising from a fresh graduate who is getting hired for the first time.
> 
> And is eastern Indian a nationality now ? wow


No, Eastern Indian is not a nationality. Indian is a Nationality; Eastern Indian means that you're from the Eastern part of India. This (East India) however is a term coined by the Americans who have difficulty differentiating between Indians and Native Americans.

Mina, I looked through your previous thread when you were offered the role initially and had your doubts. Seems like you didn't take any of the advice offered to you at that time. I do hope things work out for you but it is also unfair to blame the company or its HR department entirely. You knew full well what you were getting into before you even started this job.


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## Froglet (May 7, 2014)

pamela0810 said:


> No, Eastern Indian is not a nationality. Indian is a Nationality; Eastern Indian means that you're from the Eastern part of India. This (East India) however is a term coined by the Americans who have difficulty differentiating between Indians and Native Americans.
> 
> Mina, I looked through your previous thread when you were offered the role initially and had your doubts. Seems like you didn't take any of the advice offered to you at that time. I do hope things work out for you but it is also unfair to blame the company or its HR department entirely. You knew full well what you were getting into before you even started this job.


Of course she knew. But she had also been without a job for 16 months! I guess when you've not had a job for such a while you'll get less picky on the company to work for... 

All in all, I would say Mina was desperate to get employed and that's why she took the job (despite the the red flags)


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