My First month on the United Arab Emirates 🇵🇸

*Hi Steemians! I just want to share with you guys my first-month experience of living and working abroad, particularly here on the United Arab Emirates. It took me a long time to compose this blog, I hope you read it until the very end 😁. I hope it can inspire some other readers. So let us start..*

It's been 1 month since I got the opportunity to go here in UAE for my work career. I'm so thankful that my decision to go here is worth it. I've been waiting for almost 1 year in the Philippines 🇵🇭 for this job opportunity abroad.

I will share first the story of how I ended working here in UAE 😁.

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQGNLxfJsg8wTHJJ5h5GVcqU6s4d8sPyksPG1jM1LLDig/image.png) Last June 2016, Some of my co-workers told me that there will be an employer from Poland that will visit the Philippines to find 10 qualified dental technicians to work for him. So without hesitation, I take my chances to go and try to get that work opportunity. I know that job opportunity in Poland would be a great way for my whole career because I will get the chance to go in a country in Europe with a Schengen Visa. That visa is one of the best visas you can have because if you're a Schengen visa Holder, you can visit the 26 Schengen areas in Europe with that visa only, not like in any country that their visa is only applicable to them. Having a multipurpose visa saves our time and effort to apply for other countries visa that we need when we go overseas, especially for travelers. And let us go back to the story 😂 But before the employer will choose the 10 dental technician that he wants, first we need to have a trade test, it's a test that we need to carve a tooth on a dental wax. Unfortunately that time, my skills on carving is already departed, not totally gone but its like i can't carve a good looking tooth because since I started to work, my position in my company that time is a Dental CAD (Computer-Aided-Design) Designer Technician ever since, meaning I'm working using computer and sadly my hands-on skills that I studied at school is already gone because it's almost a year passed by when I graduated. So I only have a slim chance to be picked as one of the ten technicians he needs if he will be choosing the technicians based on their carvings. But before the trade test starts, he asks if there is someone has knowledge on CADCAM, and the only one who raises the hand is me 😄. The interesting part is after I got told about the employer, I knew that he will ask for a technician with a CADCAM knowledge so I already anticipate of what will happen but of course I also knew that carving will be the test for us. So what did I do is I saved my designs of my work on my cell phone in case that the employer will ask for it. Surprisingly what happens on the trade test was the scenario of what I've been thinking. He asks me if I have some of my sample designs and I showed it to him then he already says, "you're in". That time I don't know what to say because I didn't expect to be chosen out of 60+ technicians who came on that day. All of them were shocked that I got chosen easily, but even though I'm already in, the employer still asks me to do the carving. And he gives us 30 minutes for carving. After that I finished my carving, it's looking terrible 😂. But it's no big deal for the employer because he knows that my skills are not in the hands-on, but on the digital. So after the trade test, he already picked the lucky 10 dental technicians that will be working for him soon. He gave us instructions to prepare our documents we need to be able to go in Poland. And after we talk on how we will complete the documents that we needed, he leaves the Philippines and promised to be back as soon as our documents are ready and when the time he came back, that's the time that we will start to work on Poland. So we've been told to rush the documents we needed, there were sometimes that I need to absent from my work just to gather and complete my requirements. But it's no big deal for me because I know there is much better opportunity awaits me. ![IMG_20170227_212953.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZgTqH1sGx18bFtDJGr5Q63QQrmv2x43kVEJwig6ixXNs/IMG_20170227_212953.jpg) After 2 months of completing our documents, we told the employer that we already complete the documents he needed, but then there is one problem, there is no embassy of Poland in our country to stamp working visa for us. So he's planning to take us to Malaysia first to apply for a working visa. Then he says to us that just stay put and wait for him again. But 5 months have passed, still no update from him until this February 2017 he gave an update on our work. He says that our work in Poland is canceled. That time I already resigned from my last company because I anticipate my work opportunity from him. But he said that instead in Poland, he will divert our work in Malaysia, he has another laboratory there. So I'm still happy at that time because I still have the work opportunity to him. But again, the employer cant give us the exact date of when we will start to work until last September 2017, I totally lost my hopes to work for him. Imagine I wait for almost 1 year for him then it ended up nothing ☹️☹️. That's the time I start to look on the internet for job opportunities abroad. The good thing is there are plenty of websites on google that you can look for a particular job in a particular place you want. This website is the reason why I got my job here in UAE (Indeed.Ae). If some of you looking for a job, or if some of your relatives are hoping for a job, click [here](http://www.indeed.ae) to visit the indeed website. I uploaded my cv to the website so every company can check my cv even if I didn't apply for them. And that's what happens to me, everyday I checked the website for a job opening on the cadcam technician, I always submit my cv to different labs who are looking for a CADCAM technician, unfortunately I didn't receive any response from any of the laboratories that I applied. After trying and trying on that website for almost 3 months, I ended applying to a local laboratory because I'm losing hope that I can find my job on the internet, that time I really needed to have worked because I need to give financial support to my family. And one day, after I came to a company and apply to them. I was on the bus to get back home, and that time I'm already got a yes on that company and I just need to submit the requirements they needed. Suddenly I received a call from a dental lab company in UAE. And that time I was not expecting to have a job offer abroad because I already lose my hopes to find a work overseas. And after that call, the company gives me only almost 1 month to prepare my documents and my self for leaving the country and fly to UAE. Honestly, when I got the job offer, I was so excited to go, because I have a much much higher salary in UAE than here in the Philippines, it's like x5 of my ph salary and I will get that here on UAE in just 1 month. But while the time passing by, I'm starting to realize that I will be gone for 2 years without my family beside me. And that's what worries me because of im, not an independent person. I can't cook for my self, except fry dishes 😅. And after many weeks of preparation, the time has come. My things are ready, my passport is ready, my documents are ready, my plane ticket is ready, but the question is, Am I ready? On my very last day of stay in our home, I cherished every minute, every second that passed by, because I know it will take 2 or more years before I got the chance to live again in our home sweet home. My flight is scheduled on December 4, 2017, bound to Hong Kong. I know you're wondering why I need to go to Hong Kong if my work is in UAE, it's because I will be exiting on hong kong as a tourist and then fly again to UAE. I know it sounds illegal for some, but trust me this is one of the easiest ways to go in the United Arab Emirates in my situation. But I don't recommend it to everybody, because its too risky and maybe it's ok to do it if you have close friends or somebody that you can contact in case there's something bad happens to you on the country that you will visit. I take the tourist visa because I don't have any relatives here on UAE so no one can apply for my sponsorship. But if I take the safest and legal way to go here in UAE and that is thru agency, they will process my documents for a working visa but it will take too long and my company needed me asap so I decided to go as tourist. Some of my relatives and friends says I'm so brave that I'm willing take my chances to leave the Philippines with an only tourist visa. Because if the immigration on the Philippines or in hong kong or UAE questions my visit in their country, I can explain though, but if they ask for more information or my true intentions of going to their country, that's the time I will face problems and the worst case scenario is I will be deported back to the Philippines. But luckily, all the 3 immigrations that I've been encountered (Ph Immigration, HK immigration, Dxb Immigration) does not ask any questions to me, they just looked at me and then stamp my passport right away 😁. Maybe because I'm not suspicious looking so they think I will not do anything illegal in their country 🤣(lol). But then again I'm so thankful that nothing bad happens to me. I arrived here on UAE safe and sound 😁 I arrived here at December 7, if you're reading my blog from the start, you will notice that I leave the Philippines at December 4 but I arrived here at December 7?! Why?! the reason is I needed to stay in Hong Kong for 2 days or more because I needed to wait for my visit visa in UAE 😅. I cant book a direct flight to Uae because I don't have a sponsorship. But after 2 days of stay in HK, I was able to get it and got a flight to DXB on December 7 at 5:30 pm (UTC+08:00) and arriving at DXB at 10:30 pm (UTC+04:00). ![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZuBQjaGbbcgMSXWH2FwBqjCJbJV3Diy3ard2L53NEPEs/image.png)

So in my first month of stay here on Uae, I would say that even though it's totally different on how I live here compared to the Philippines, the only difference is I live independently here, the culture is different and also the daily lifestyle. But honestly, I fell homesick only I think on my first 3 days here, because my room is so messy, and me personally I don't like a messy place/room, I got irritated always. Also, it's winter when I came here, and I'm not used to the cold environment 😣. But I'm glad I have pocket money to buy the needed kinds of stuff for my room. Also, the big factor of why I do not feel the homesick here is that, where ever you go, there are so many kabayan (Filipinos) here in my vicinity. After my work, I always go to the nearby mall and do window shopping so I don't feel alone in our apartment. In our flat (apartment) All of my housemates are Filipino so it's easy to get along with them because we share the same language and some habits as a Filipino. And also I have my friends and co-dental technician here on UAE @gheghenrv and @charmsantos that I can always be talked to. And also thanks to ***STEEMIT*** because it makes me busy all the time 😂 and it makes me feel that I'm not alone. I'm enjoying to kill my spare time to make blogs to be shared with the community. And after a month of stay in our apartment, I already got comfortable to them, and they even called me "bunso" which means "youngest", because at my age of 20 y.o, I already working abroad and it's not a usual age for a working person abroad 🤣. I know I'm too young to be working overseas, but my mindset is different from a typical young-adult person. My mindset is to have a decent job ever since I graduated from college, not like the others that they only want to go vacation on different places, spend time on finding their partners😂 and etc. And one more thing that amaze me is when I go to the grocery in nearby mall, I was shocked that the things you can buy here like food, appliances and any other kinds of stuff are cheap compared to Philippines, maybe its because there is no vat (value added tax) here. But last January 1, 2018, they implemented a 5% vat on all items. Even though it will cost 5% of the price of total items you buy if you compute all of the vat that you paid in a year, it's will be a big figure and you could buy other things you want in that total vat you paid. But right now I don't feel the vat yet, maybe in the next few months, it will start to give a headache to me. ![IMG_20180105_025618.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmYQL99WcnRPBzGMMpYnLnZahyUahhb74HpuLnjAGF3r9T/IMG_20180105_025618.jpg)^{*Some of my kabayan housemates in our flat*}

In my first month of working here. It was really different from how I work here than on my last company in the Philippines. Here my job is a start to finish process. On my last job, I only have 1 process. My last job was very stressful (as in). We always need to overtime because we have too much case to do. Sometimes the overtime is not paid if you didn't reach the quota within 8 hours of work. There was a time that we worked for almost 16 hours in a week 😢. But here my duty is always 8 hours fixed, there are days that I need to overtime, but it's only 30 minutes or less rather than in my last company that I stay for 2 hours more and they will not pay it most of the time. If I will rate the difficulty of my work here versus my last company, I would say here its 5/10, and 9/10 in my last company 😂. ![IMG_20171223_214558_507.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRtqbnjrooVvaacknPNfA61RWcu9ENcbyJi7EW78USdGQ/IMG_20171223_214558_507.jpg)

And that's all for this blog, it took me a long time to compose this because I want to make it special. I want to inspire others about my story. I want to say to everyone that if you want something to happen, you can do it with your willpower. No matter what happens, always be positive. Don't get lose hope on small things that may happen. And be patient all the time, in every situation 😁.

*To all **OFW** (Overseas Filipino Workers) out there and here on steemit, I know hard work pays off as always. I know someday we will be rewarded for the things we do and we sacrifice.*

Steem On!

©@xbudeh

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