A Canadian web designer gets rather racist when asking for a job:
From: Amir Saffar
To: Mike Platts
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 9:11 PM
Subject: RE: hi againit’s very simple Mike. You are interested in my profile and i wanted to know how much you were able to pay. no response means: you either can’t pay that much, or you only hire indians and pakistanis who don’t ask for a good salary.
but dude, i am neither indian or paki and i have never worked for less than 2000 usd/month. You got it now!?Amir
Read the whole exchange.
At least he’s being honest. Many of the khawageyya in Dubai (and who are we kidding, Cairo too – AUC has a racist pay-scale) go on about how they bring specific skill sets, have to go back home frequently, educate their kids, and therefore deserve more money (because of course no other foreign worker faces that situation, not in the US or UK, oh no). I prefer in-your-face honest racism.
He was being a jerk for no reason. His first e-mail seemed ok actually, but then he seemed to go off the rails. Some people create their own luck it would seem.
Eh
What racism?
I see some inflated sense of self-importance on the part of the idiot Saffar, combined with snobbery re the Sub-Con code-monkeys that do indeed work in Dubai, but racism? Idiocy. Lack of any sense of proportion. Over-estimation of own English and other skills, no doubt in connexion with the sacred Foriegn Passport Acquired syndrome. But racism?
I also don’t find the differential pay scale, Western expat versus non-Western expat per se racist. There are real skill differences that are roughly approximated by whether the employee brings substantial developed market experience to the table.
Afraid, I am merely puzzled and bemused by SP’s pointless rambling then.
The self-important assumptions that one is worth more with a “Western” degree are usually not borne out by what the market is willing to offer, and it’s racist thinking (and often distorted institutions based on racist thinking, which are sticky even when out of sync with economic rationality) that supports them.
But it’s human to think we’re in a position because we deserve it, or have earned it. Born on third base and think you hit a triple, and all that.
“…with any luck you’ll be back fucking moose in time for Christmas…”
As the token Canuck here, all I have to say is “ouch.”
Well, SP, I’m afraid my experience disagrees with your position.
As a general matter, having a Western degree often means the degree holder has better training than from one of the crappy in region universities (depending on the precise subject matter, etc), and is a rough estimator of higher skills.
You can call that racist if you want, I call it the market making accurate judgements – rough but accurate.