I snapped this while waiting in line for a taxi outside Al Wahda Mall the other day. This, my friends, is one of the most embarrassing British colonial holdovers of our time.
It is 2011, and the UAE is riddled with people expats commonly refer to tea boys and trolley boys and assorted other workers in the service industry who are men, MEN who work like dogs for long hours, many outside in unbearable heat and beating sun, six or seven days a week for peanuts they save and send home and use to build entire houses and support entire families. In this ridiculous world where people earning 100K plus – over here, without paying any taxes – yet live beyond their means on maxed out credit cards, whining about not getting a pay rise, we could learn a TON from these guys.
But the first thing, the very first thing we should be doing is calling them what they are, men. Standup, real, take-care-of-things men. And the last thing we should be doing is embroidering words that demean them on shirts for all to see.
11 comments:
I think you mean "no one OVER the age of 12 should be called a boy".
"No one over the age of 12 should be called a boy"---wouldn't this have been the actual headline???
Get over it.
I think you meant anyone OVER 12
I think you mean OVER the age of 12, but point taken.
Really enjoy your blog, keep up the good work.
And that my friends, is why you should never write a rant on your blog and then immediately leave the country on a looooong journey where you can't check your work!
I need to hire more staff. :)
Well put Ann Marie! I had the hardest time with the disparity that is RAMPANT in the UAE.....thanks for shining a light on it!
Well put Ann Marie! I had the hardest time with the disparity that is RAMPANT in the UAE. Good on ya for shining a light on it.
i hate that people only commented on the error of your title.is that all they get from this?
I wonder when is this country going to unmask its true face to the world.everything in here is a facade of wealth but underlies it is poverty.while westerns enjoy a very high paycheck, asians receive the opposite.how i wish someday this would at least balance out.
I too spotted this at Al Wahda… my heart sank. Good to see it raised.
Think about these things a great deal here. Wish the western expat salaries got knocked down to a reasonable rate and the labourers got kicked up a notch or two (or a few thousand dirhams each would be more in line for the work they do).
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