Working in the Middle East is not new for Joel Lara, a marketing professional who is currently based in Abu Dhabi. He has been working in Doha, Qatar, since 2015.
Despite having a stable job back home, he seized the day when an opportunity to work overseas knocked.
Amazed by the beautiful country, everything was new to him. He thought: “There were no hanging electricity wires, the roads streets were seamless that no random public or private vehicles were driving around, and no people were crossing along the road. Everything looks neat and organized.”
He had proven to himself when he worked overseas that everything he learned from school was not enough, and those theories inculcated in his mind were not 100 percent applicable when he had to put himself in real-life corporate experience.
When he arrived in the host country, he was lucky enough to obtain a job related to his long work experience in customer service in the call center industry.
He worked for a major network in the country, dealing with various customers daily.
“The challenge in working with that company was the workforce composition, as it was never easy to work with different nationalities. Dealing with customers in the middle east is easier as my training was that the western setup is extreme in all aspects. However, working with hundreds of different nationalities in the same company brought difficulties as they did not have a concept of professionalism and work ethic,” he said.
Joel had to leave the company and choose a new career path–this time in a construction company. He said that the workload was a lot easier, and the people were manageable to work with, although there were still occasional complications with others, which was inevitable.
Getting the salary on time was also an issue. He struggled to pay his bills because their salary was continuously pending for several months; thus, he had to take up freelance work as a volunteer trainer for Filipino Institute.
Teaching is his passion since he has been teaching English since he was only 18. His love for teaching rekindled when he joined the roster of trainers at the institute.
The year 2021 brought him a new and exciting chapter when he decided to move to UAE to live with his mother. He was excited because he knew that the country is so welcoming to expatriates and the lifestyle is upbeat and always on the go, which matches his personality.
He accepted the position as the marketing manager of the Filipino Institute Abu Dhabi campus, where he gets to meet people from different walks of life and learn from their careers and life experiences.
“I am just lucky that it is easy for me to find work. I owe this to the education and acquired training I had over the years. If I am to compare the work experiences I had from different companies, there’s one thing common with them: multicultural composition,” he said.
Joel recalled when he was denied the opportunity of promotion because he was not speaking the local language despite his experiences, expertise, and knowledge on the job.
“It hurts to see someone you know has less experience and knowledge than me to have better pay and a better career,” he added.
For the longest time he was working, he realized that he had to step up and be his own boss. He likes the idea of working on his terms while he gets to do things he loves and makes him happy. Hence, it becomes his advocacy to share the mantra with every student he teaches to have that mindset of being future entrepreneurs and having control of their lives and finances.
Joel plans to work in the emirate for a few more years and save up for his dream house in addition to a simple farm business he was able to procure while working overseas.
“I wanted to retire at a young age in a cold breeze up in Cordillera, having a hot tea overlooking a green mountain view,” he said.
Joel defines success as finding happiness in what you’ve accomplished, what you’re doing, and what you will do in the future, so long you don’t violate anyone.
“We might not all be there yet, or we still have some goals to attain but what is most important is that we respect ourselves and other people,” he concluded.