Curtain Call

Still reeling from the harsh effects of recession, expats from Dubai are finding it hard to move on. Newspapers say that the economy is now improving, that more jobs will be created in the next months, that banks are now confident again to lend, etc. But all these maybe are just a spin doctor's campaign to manage the crisis. I guess, Dubai is doing its curtain call...

Every week, my prayer list always has "job-seekers". Many are long time, many are just recent. The feeling of paranoia is just so daunting that even the most stable man may find himself with emotions he is not familiar with.

Gathering from the various stories of people in the workforce like me, I can only say that truly, this recession has revealed the ugly face of consumerism/ capitalism. And what is that? The name itself says it. At the end of the day, it is money that really counts, and not the relationsips, not the human resources and not the skills. Many owners are turning into growling hungry tigers, who want the people under them to be turned into tigers as well, and threaten the people to do this, or else... The threat of "a lot of people are lining up for your post" is just so fiece, and so cold. Looking back, I think many of the employee empowerment programs were just a lie, a social blitz campaign to get all the brains it needed, just to be thrown away so easily when useless. Redundancy is such a convenient excuse for many companies.

This is the very cycle of the world that we are in that we fed ourselves with. More people spending, more jobs, more spending, more jobs... Vicious cycle. Cut it somewhere and you have recession. The good side is, we are back-to-the-basics.

There are a few laudable exemptions who have kept its corporate virtues and I really do admire them and these are the companies worth cutting paycheck for.