From Costco to Qatar
Like a lot of Americans, I’m spending more and more time on job-search sites. I’m really, really hoping I don’t have to go back to work, but it’s sort of looking that I’ll have to. We’ve already cut down our grocery list to the barest essentials (no more US Magazine or wine), and I’m giving up my beloved 2% Greek yogurt for 0% Greek yogurt because, for some reason, only the 0% kind is sold at Costco. My husband is dropping his cell phone line. We’re probably going to get rid of our cable TV.
Even with these cuts, I still may have to return to work. So, I’ve been hitting JournalismJobs.com a couple of times a day. The chances of finding a part-time job, near our house Connecticut, which has me only working the evening and weekend hours when my husband is home, and which suits my unique (limited) skills are probably slim.
But lookee here! This morning, I see something I’m perfectly qualified for. It’s for a people person who is interested in promoting sports. That’s got “me” all over it. Wait, what’s this? Salary: more than $100,000 (emphasis mine). Wowsa.
Oh, hold on … the job is in Doha, Qatar.
Our client offers excellent tax free salary, medical cover, relocation & repatriation expenses and round-trip air-tickets.
Oh. So. Tempting.
What would our life would be like in Qatar? Luckily, we can get a preview by spending some time on www.QatarLiving.com where the following discussions are topics underway:
The double question marks on that last one make me a little nervous. Too aggressive. Guess I’ll keep looking…
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Re: From Costco to Qatar
Ursula: no more wine? Really? Given the well documented health benefits, I fear you're taking a big risk. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that Qatar has any reputable wine merchants.
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Ursula, you’re right,… you don’t want to go to Doha. I spent a bit of time there in the mid-90’s. The heat was unbelievable. When I was there, they imported a huge segment of their labor from the Philippines, and I gathered from talking to them that their treatment was at times questionable. They were transported each day to and from a compound that housed foreign nationals. There were some decent department stores and malls in Doha, all staffed by foreign national employees. The one bright spot was a wonderful coffee house that featured hookahs, and it was situated right at the approach end of the runway at Doha International Airport. We would sit there in the evening, with a cup of Turkish coffee, a German pastry of some sort, and a honey flavored hookah, watching the 747’s come in for a landing right over our heads. The next day, the heat would soar beyond all reason, and we remembered we were in the mid east and within SCUD range of a lot of ugly players. As for sports…well,..there’s camel racing.
Jun '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Sometimes you have to create your own job. I remember reading about a librarian who couldn't find a job in the public sector, so instead, she went to the big company next door and convinced them they needed a professional librarian to organize their company's manuals, journals, and records, so they always knew what they had. She ended up with a higher salary, more freedom, and more career opportunities than she would've had as a regular librarian.
Jul '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Sounds like a great opportunity, Ursula.
Maybe too good:
"Saudi couple "hammer 24 nails" into Sri Lankan maid"
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67P17420100826
Motivational theory varies widely around the world...
Re: From Costco to Qatar
I have (American) friends who have migrated to the Gulf for the lavish, tax-free salaries. They're actually very happy. I've considered it myself, and ruled it out only on the grounds that if I'm moving anywhere, it's got to be further from Iran, not closer.
It's very hard to argue with salaries like that. Usually people think, "Oh, I'll do it for three years and save a bit, then I'll come back," but people I know have stayed for much longer. Apparently, it's quite addictive to earn tons and tons and tons of money to do jobs that are poorly-paid in the US. Who would have guessed.
Aug '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
I know this isn't very helpful, because saving a few cents on yogurt can't solve much, but what I've found is that if you have a Greek food store or ethnic market nearby, stuff like Greek yogurt is often cheaper there than it is at the big discount stores -- and in particular, cheaper than Costco (whose deals on the products that we would buy from them aren't so hot for some reason). Splitting up shopping to get better deals on certain items does, however, take time and extra gas, so it's not always worth it.
You can also make strained yogurt at home with plain yogurt and a coffee filter, dish towel, or cheesecloth. Tons of sites offer instructions on how to do this.
Basically, you line a colander, strainer, or funnel with a coffee filter, plunk this contraption into something like a bowl to catch the whey that'll drip out, dump the yogurt in, refrigerate, and wait. (Some people also call strained yogurt yogurt cheese.)
Aug '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
PS: Lowfat or nonfat yogurt that's been thickened with gelatin will not strain, because the gelatin holds in the whey. By stirring in a little salt, if you like, and straining the yogurt for longer, you get a Lebanese delicacy called labne (a.k.a labna, leben, or labneh). This stuff is spreadable, maybe better for you than cream cheese, and certainly tangier.
Other random "helpful hints" on running a cheaper kitchen:
If you cannot afford to drink wine, you may still be able to afford to cook with it by buying cooking wine (lousy wine preserved with salt or something, but it's just fine for cooking, and often much cheaper than the drinkable stuff).
Cabbage is a wonderfully cheap vegetable, and when not overcooked, quite delicious. Chopped roughly and braised in vinegar (with cooking wine, too, if you have it) and seasoned with salt and pepper, it's really quite tasty and easy to prepare. (Add dill, caraway, or whatever during braising for variety.)
If you have the time, and you haven't done this already, experimenting with slow-cooking the cheaper, tougher cuts of meat really saves on the protein budget.
Jul '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Ursula, you're no doubt a lovely person, but you're rather slow on the uptake.
The answer to your economic conundrum is obvious: divorce your husband, declare yourself to be a penurious single mom and watch the government dollars roll in.
Of course, your husband will have to make himself scarce when your caseworker shows up, but that's a small price to pay for food stamps, WIC benefits and housing credits.
Now go out and buy that flat-screen TV.
May '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Drop the cable, my wife & I have lived without, well forever since there wasn't any cable when we got married back in 1975. Of course, you may end up with more little Hennesseys (my wife & I have five children).
If you've never worked through the exercises in What Color Is Your Parachute? you will find it very worth your time as far as identifying what you're really good at, and what you're really interested in, and maybe even identifying some ways to get paid for doing something you're really interested in that you're really good at.
Edited on Sep. 4 at 12:57pmAug '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
I haven't been to Qatar - so feel free to stop reading me right now - but I do see you have three kids and I would say that that is reason enough not to go. Ordinarily my counsel would run along the lines of oh-where's-your-sense-of-adventure but a, ah, competitively Moslem place cannot be a good place to raise children. There's no adult culture. They have few energies and such that they do have impel them to act like teenage boys. Whether or not Qatar is dangerous, I'd bet it is dull; the sort of place that every day makes you say, "May I please grow up now?" Because my children need to, too!
Aug '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
As for cable, I think Mona Charen's family has only a television monitor hooked up to a DVD player, and they like this arrangement. That way, if there's something they really want to see, they rent, borrow, or buy the DVD, but otherwise they're TV-free.
Local libraries often have a surprisingly large DVD collection, and if you're ethically comfortable with the following, you can try it:
Libraries have some limited ability to order the DVDs you ask for if they can justify them as "educational" and wanted by their patrons. My folks, who have never had cable, sometimes make these requests to see DVDs of programs that are only on cable otherwise.
Edited on Sep. 4 at 11:05pmMay '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Ursula -- I have a rather serious question:
Today the President gave a radio address where he sounded the clarion call to class warfare. (Perhaps a fall campaign strategy in fact.) He said he couldn't care less about what Wall Street wants, he only cares about what the middle class wants. Now I disagree because I think it demonstrates that he doesn't understand how private sector jobs are made. But I care more about what you think:
Your family seems in many ways to typify exactly the folks he believes his policies are designed to help. You are burdened by medical care costs, unable to purchase a home, relocated to improve your children's education, and cutting back on not-so-luxurious luxuries to make ends meet and joking about moving to the Middle East for work.
So is there some part of his redistributionist message that speaks to you maybe late at night when your Ricochet peeps have gone to bed and you're missing your full-fat yogurt? Do you think to yourself sometimes that maybe my government should make things more fair for folks like me?
Why/Why not? In 200 words or less please.
May '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Ursula, I have had to do the same sort of job search numerous times in my life; its crap and it does not make things better when you handle the usual number of rejections etc. May I suggest you network fully with both your colleagues in your industry and with those at Ricochet amongst others; and never leave a catchup / meeting/coffee with them without a few names/numbers of those to call who may be in the market for your significant talents. (Yes I know its the Amway of networking but grit your teeth and do it anyway) Best of Luck
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Trace, my first instinct is to support the kind of Marist housing plan that I wrote about last week here. In other words, I'd love to feel rewarded for not having credit card debt, conserving energy, having a small, energy efficient car that I keep in good condition, for being generally responsible with my family's diet, energy consumption, finances, etc. But that's a disastrous trap. A government-run system of rewards makes my head hurt. I guess all I can hope for is that our health insurance premium goes down instead of up or that less taxes are withheld from my husband's paycheck. Putting these small monthly bits of money back in our pockets might actually allow me to stay home to raise my children without constant fear about our lack of savings or that some freak accident will wipe us out. Also, my husband works for a non-profit that relies on donations. A growing economy would have an indirect effect on that as well. I could write more, but I'm still thinking about it ... It's a hard but fair question, but one that's a challenge for me to think about calmly, since, despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of this post, I'm actually quite frustrated by our situation.
Aug '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Gosh. Good luck with that. I expect health insurance premiums to skyrocket, as healthy people find out it's more worthwhile to pay the fine for not having insurance than it is to have to pay the same premium that chronic sickos like me pay (as the effect of not being allowed to charge sick people more will naturally be to have everyone pay sick people's rates). I'm also not optimistic about tax cuts, unless radical change happens soon.
A very disastrous trap, as it imposes by force the same moral vision on everyone. Isn't part of the American ideal that (within wide boundaries) each of us can store up treasure in heaven in the way he sees fit?
Aug '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
I think David's advice is excellent. Awkward as it may be to do this, the personal knowledge transmitted by making these connections is not something that's easily conveyed by other means. While my own parents taught me to look down on this behavior as "social climbing" or "cliquishness", or "trying to get ahead by circumventing merit", the fact is that connections made this way are often quite fruitful and should not be scorned, particularly in difficult times.
May '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Well, it's cleaer that what is most needed is to get enhanced revenue opportunities for Ursula. I think that 1) she does need cable, because her area of expertise is sports-writing, and you need ESPN, FSN, TNT, NFL, MLB, etc., to follow that.
I think that we need to find a way for her to be the sports correspondent for some conservative journals. This is a huge part of American life, and the fact is, almost none (NR very occasionallly covers sports) of the national publications covers sports. We need TWS, TAS, etc. to seek weekly columns on sports form a conservative perspective. Even AEI could use a person who looks at sports and economics (public-funded stadia, etc.)
Call your favorite journals and demand sports!
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Duane, you're making an excellent point, as always.
Personally, I'd love to read more general interest writing from a conservative perspective. (I'd like to read pretty much anything Ursula writes, but that's another story.)
Ursula, I feel for you on the Greek yogurt issue, but I've found that the fat-free is still pretty good, especially if you put in some honey. Which may miss the point of the fat-free business....
Re: From Costco to Qatar
You are the best, Duane, for actually taking on my thinking for me! I also completely agree -- sports and conservative thinking have loads in common. There's a lot to be said about the connections. But, in all honesty, I don't think I deserve those jobs. There was a time when I *begged* bosses for press passes so I could go to sporting events on my days off. I spent all my time, paid or not, following more experienced people around, soaking up the ways it all worked, asking questions, observing. It was time-consuming, but I had all the time in the world, and it was certainly worth it. Based on my current life w/ 3 young children, I'd have to be paid for the actual hours I was away from my family, and that's not quite how journalism works, certainly not good sports journalism. I'd have to go to a few games a week, arrange for interviews after sporting events, etc. I don't see how I could do that without paying for a sitter to watch my kids at least some of the time, and that would price me out of the situation.
Aug '10
Re: From Costco to Qatar
Ursula, if you could make a job for yourself covering, say, the philosophy of sports, or the history of sports, or sports-and-kids, for conservative publications, you might find a niche where being constantly in the loop on real-time sports coverage is less necessary.
If you have children who play sports, and you're regularly involved in school sports booster activities, you have a window into an anthropologically fascinating American subculture right there.
Or what about the relationship of sports to religion?... Go interdisciplinary!
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PS: While you're right that you should worry about how practical it is for you to do certain jobs, my own painful life-experiences tell me there is nothing as opportunity-killing as thinking, "In all honesty, I don't think I deserve those jobs." I've found that concentrating on what I deserve sucks me right into the black hole of failure, while focusing on the more morally neutral "What can I do now with what I have now?" leads to success. I think this is not just my problem, but a problem that women, generally, tend to have, which is why I mention it.
Edited on Sep. 5 at 2:15pm