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Story from National
(http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090 ... 31049/1010)

Andrew Blair feels vindicated. Scrawling the news of his recent redundancy along with his name and phone number on the rear bumper of his Porsche may not have been universally well received, but the 28-year-old Scot is working again.

“I had the last laugh, big-time,” he said the day he received his first pay cheque after being laid off from his Dh395,000-a-year (US$107,000) job as a construction project manager. “It’s wonderful to be working again. But honestly, I was scared for about 10 minutes until I found out I was getting Dh100,000 redundancy pay. Genuinely, I didn’t really care that much; I knew I’d get another job.”

The confidence Mr Blair expresses now was noticeably absent during earlier interviews with The National, when he had just gone from spending Dh9,000 a month on food and entertainment to eating Dh7 meals with labourers. Adding insult to injury, the inadvertent publicity that followed his stunt with his Porsche caught the attention of the international media, making headlines everywhere from 7 Days to CNN and the BBC – many of them decidedly unsympathetic. Independent bloggers published news of a poor driving record and the Dh3,850 he owed in unpaid fines.

“I didn’t expect that reaction, but maybe if I’d thought it through a bit more I could see how that would happen,” he said. “This has been a positive experience in the end; it cleared out the deadwood in Dubai. It made me realise things are a lot more fragile than I thought. That reality really hit us all.”

Mr Blair’s new job, as consultant at an international food and beverages firm called Thomas Klein, pays the same salary he earned previously. He got the job when the head of the company called the number he had scribbled on his Porsche bumper to ask about purchasing the upmarket white car.

Thrilled to be employed again, Mr Blair was taken aback on his first day in the job when colleagues already knew him as the “Porsche guy”. People recognised him in the streets and in bars, he said. He had been introduced to strangers by friends only to learn his reputation preceded him.

His salary may seem exorbitant to some, but Mr Blair says he has not reverted to his old ways.

His lifestyle now is decidedly modest. The Porsche has gone – impounded until he pays off the outstanding fines and then he will sell it. His mode of transport these days is a taxi. The expensive meals have also been cut back, as has the extravagant spending; he admitted he could not remember exactly what thousands of dirhams had been spent on.

“I haven’t gone back to my old lifestyle, I don’t want to,” he said. “This experience really woke me up.”

He has advice on budgeting now and it starts with becoming more aware of where your money is going.

“If you go from being a person having not much money to then having lots of money, it’s like anything else, you need education to deal with that change.”

Mr Blair says he has cut out the small stuff that adds up over the course of a year.

“I believe in standing back and looking at things again. Then you get some perspective. I’d say this experience consolidated my perspective on life. Everything’s happy now.”

Good for him. At least in the end, he's telling his story as a learning experience which might as well hit others.

skipperman wrote:Good for him. At least in the end, he's telling his story as a learning experience which might as well hit others.

Yup. In all this glitter, we always forget the basics and stretch ourselves.

This just proves that whites will get paid exhorbitant salaries in whatever jobs they are in (and unqualified for).

And before some of you harp about your "superior" educational qualifications, unless you've graduated from Harvard or Oxford, you can STFU about your perceived "smartness."

Perhaps he is taking a salary cut. We will never know.

I would never advertise I am taking a hit in my salary because it will definitely affect one's previous pay parity in the general market if future employer's ever know.

This norm still applies in the UAE. Very few or perhaps no Western expat is willing to work for less than 5k USD in my opinion

gtmash wrote:This just proves that whites will get paid exhorbitant salaries in whatever jobs they are in (and unqualified for).

And before some of you harp about your "superior" educational qualifications, unless you've graduated from Harvard or Oxford, you can STFU about your perceived "smartness."

Someone's a little bitter and doesn't get out much. FYI it is not unusual for people to have 2 or 3 careers in a lifetime.

Why qualifies you to judge one's qualifications? Is your ability to judge based on your degree from the University of Mestupid?

gtmash wrote:This just proves that whites will get paid exhorbitant salaries in whatever jobs they are in (and unqualified for).

And before some of you harp about your "superior" educational qualifications, unless you've graduated from Harvard or Oxford, you can STFU about your perceived "smartness."

What is your gripe exactly?, you sound very bitter.