Expatriation Assessment Essay

The paper discusses the experience of Ann Marie as an expatriate journalist who moved to Abu Dhabi from Canada in order to help set up a new English paper. Anne previously worked in Ottawa the Canadian capital as a blogger and a columnist for a company called sun media. She has lived in Dubai for two years, Ann was chosen to go to Dubai due to her international relation skills, as a journalist she had travelled a lot and also due to her background in studying foreign languages she would easy adapt to the language in Dubai. Ann also describes herself as open to change and flexible and very adventurous. By combining this with her great managerial skills she was the best candidate for a start-up branch in Dubai. She describes her experience in Dubai as different. The most notable change to her was the weather conditions that she had to adapt to, Dubai being in a fairly dry part of the world was very hot and her body had a few difficulties adjusting from varying temperature from four seasons to constant heat (Tuohey, 2014).
Ann also mentions the religious practices In Dubai were also a factor that she had to consider, due to the conservative nature of the Muslim community in Dubai, she had to make sure that she was aware of anything he was doing in order not to offend the residents. She explained that she felt Dubai is a great place to work and that it is very safe despite two robbery encounters where her belongings were returned (Tuohey, 2014). On the aspect of socialization Ann explains that it was hard to make friends with the locals as they are very reserved people rather she made friends with other expatriates in Dubai who had been sent for other jobs. In her work place Ann says that it was a different experience as compared to working in Canada as her colleagues who were Muslim were very religious and the laws of the religion always came first so she had to be very respectful of them. Ann commented that living and working in Dubai is not an easy task but it is one that she has come to learn from and appreciate.
In transformational skills, Ann gets awarded 5 points due to her ability to easily settle in the new country with no major issues. She was very optimistic even with difficult situations, her ability to settle fast allowed her to easily start her assignment in time. In interactional skills she receives 2 points as she has not been able to effortlessly relate with the local employees even though she interacts well with other expatriates, she explains this on the fact that the residents are very reserved. In transactional and communication skills she gets 4 points as she was able to fulfil her objective in only two years, she established an English newspaper which in now up and running and she was able to incorporate the employees to perform the task. On foreign language skills she gets 3 points due to the fact that it was not very necessary but she made the effort to learn the native language of the host nation.

References

Tuohey, J. (2014) Interview with Ann Marie McQueen - a Canadian expat living in Abu
Dhabi, Web article, retrieved from http://www.expatarrivals.com/article/interview,