Roadwarrior

by Nick Molloy

  For the next six months I am generally horrified by my observations. I spend huge swathes of time acting as personal sports coach to silver spoon. He is clearly worried about my past as a wild-man stripper and whether or not I can be ‘institutionalized’ back into a corporate setting. I duly overcome his concerns but he is everything I abhor in humanity. Born into wealth and privilege, he has a spent a lifetime trying to convince others he has achieved it on merit. He has two live-in servants and a third that drives his car. It transpires that the venture capital funding for the gym project was actually provided through his uncle. After spending time with him it was clear that he has more than a slight tendency towards psychopathy and megalomania. His insecure nature drives his desire to be perceived as better than he actually is. I’m horrified!

  I try to retreat to the solace of my friend but that friendship is found wanting. My friend is clearly not a friend of silver spoon as was claimed. They can barely be around one another outside of the confines of work. They may have been friends once, but not anymore. However, some of the worst elements of silver spoon seem to have corroded the goodly exterior of my friend and penetrated deep. My friend was once an academic. Now he had succumbed and become a corporate drone. Silver spoon had provided him opportunities in the corporate world that led him back to Dubai. He was earning the kind of money he had never earned before, but at what price?

  It appeared he had lost huge amounts of empathy. Whereas previously I regarded my friend as somebody who was moral and upstanding, I now discovered a new character in his place, someone who looked like my former friend but wasn’t him. He was now somebody who was willing to rape and pillage, just so long as the bounty benefitted him. I frequently saw glimpses of the old friend I knew rattling the bars of the prison to which he had been banished. However, the lookalike would beat the bars with a stick and my old friend would retreat into his cell leaving the lookalike in charge.

  During the six months I would spend countless wasted hours attending meetings to talk about other meetings, normally led by silver spoon. Apart from also taking some pre opening bootcamp classes I also put together the strength and conditioning team.

  Funnily enough ‘sports professionals’ have a similar psyche to strippers. They tend to exaggerate their achievements and prowess. You have to deduct 20% from what they claim they can lift/run/jump to get the real figure. Also, it was quite amusing how by having the title ‘Head of Strength and Conditioning’ my word had suddenly become gospel. After all, how could I have got the position if I wasn’t a guru ? Naturally, I think I know what I’m talking about but it just shows how naïve people can be. Positions are rarely achieved on merit. Ranking in the workplace owes more to saying yes and nodding dog than it does to actual results. My opinions were just as valid when I had no title but people would argue with a stripper. If the stripper wins a national title it is down to fortune. If the Head of Strength and Conditioning wins it is down to his experience and programming. It was very easy to see how some alleged gurus have developed huge followings despite offering poor advice. If you are on a pedestal it doesn’t really matter what you say.

  Along the road, I was being asked to become complicit in the stitching up of potential staff members. Naturally, I did the opposite and told people honestly what they could expect. I wouldn’t lie to them and pretend their wages would be X knowing full well they’d be Y. One fateful morning I knew all remnants of my former friend had been eradicated when he tried to tell me that commission schemes are never provided upfront. Workers apparently had to join the company first and accept what they were given. Silver spoon and my friend were taking fat cat salaries from a major corporate well into six figures. Yet they were happy and willing to let people with very little money leave their jobs on the basis of a bogus offer. Said people were then left to feed their families by whatever means in the interim. They didn’t care.

  The HR director was clearly very closely associated to silver spoon. She knew nothing about HR or business. She was being paid a good salary only because she did as silver spoon asked. She was known as Flocci to a few of us (short for floccinaucinihilipilification or the definition of uselessness). Flocci was also prone to trying to hire people with other silver spoons sticking out of various orifices. I kept rejecting them for my unit and insisting on people who knew their craft. That didn’t prevent the hiring of sales staff who had never had a job but drove around in new Porsches. Meanwhile the Filipino guy I recommended who would have gone through a brick wall for the job was rejected on nationality. His track record in sales was unimportant. After all, I had already had put forward another Filipino guy for a strength and conditioning role.

  The culture felt rotten, elitist and privileged. The irony was that it had some good people in the set up. Dictatorship however, just feels plain wrong to me, no matter what the circumstances.

  After I had been back in the desert for three months I read an article in the paper. The headline ran ‘Man locked up for Criticizing UAE’. I wrote a book where I was less than complimentary about the UAE. It made me uneasy. What if someone leaked that my new name was charade and that I was in fact the guy that criticized the UAE in print ? Also, I was once accosted by a local in the street asking to see my resident’s visa and demanding to take me to a police station. He went away when he realized

  I was on a tourist visa. My crime – I’d just come out of the gym and was wearing shorts. I should add that many people in Dubai were dressed the same. I don’t know why he was being difficult with me. I’ve mentioned elsewhere – I’m not very lucky !

  Things came to a head at the end of December 2014. I had become increasingly critical of some of their processes and methods. This wasn’t appealing to them and I was told that dissent wasn’t welcome. Technically they owed me about £15,000 in unpaid wages, not to mention another £2000 in expenses. Before I left I investigated the legal possibility of retrieving this. I would have had to remain in Dubai and considering the wealth of silver spoon and his connections I thought this was a bad idea. I refer you back to the ‘man locked up for criticizing UAE’ article. I was anxious to leave and quickly. It wasn’t until the plane reached Oman that I breathed a sigh of relief. I was terribly worried about my poor turtles. Marvin and Shell had barely arrived before being forced to leave again and they no doubt found the journey very stressful. Their transportation was very costly but thankfully they are ok.

  With hindsight I look back in disgust. I must have been desperate for the project to work. I envisaged 5-6 years working in sports then retirement. They completely exploited the trust I had in my friend. I shut down a perfectly functioning business in the UK. In fact, I buried it. I removed all the websites, told all the agents I was gone for good, etc. I paid for Mickey Mouse courses, paid for my own flights, relocated my girlfriend and my turtles. I even changed my name by deed poll. I think that makes me pretty invested in their cause!

  There is no way they couldn’t have known that by arriving when I did they couldn’t afford to pay me. They had to have known, otherwise why not just delay my arrival? They hadn’t even got a resident’s visa for me upon arrival. It meant that a dodgy Jordanian guy ran off with my money on the first place I rented. Apparently, as I was technically breaking the law by renting without a visa there was nothing I could do other than face arrest. When a visa finally arrived I rented a place for a year. By leaving early I’ve lost a load of that money too. By rights I’m due some back but the rental agent is ignoring me and the body set up to protect consumer rights on this issue (Dubai rightfully has a bad reputation on many consumer issues) also won’t return my call. It’s highly likely that I have been registered as ‘absconded’ by my employer, even though it was they that asked me to leave and never actually paid me what was due. I therefore could be denied entry if I ever tried to go through the country again.

  A few months prior to leaving for Dubai I lost my final grandparent. My Nanna’s worldly possessions were modest but she did own a small retirement
flat. Out of the estate, I feel extremely privileged that she actually left me £5000. I know that she would have wanted me to buy something I would have enjoyed with the money. It really angers me that the money she gifted me was wasted/stolen on rent and food waiting for a bunch of crooks to deliver on some false promises. In fact my six months in Dubai cost considerably more than that. It feels like I was led down a dark alley by somebody I trusted, only to arrive at an ambush that the one I had trusted had actually orchestrated. I can’t begin to tell you what a disappointment that is!

  It’s a few months on now and my feelings have not changed. Whilst it was hardly the worst experience of my life, it remains the most disappointing experience of my life.

  My other half rated it as the worst experience of her life! She found a job but her boss was another silver spoon tyrant and she hated going to work. Her line of work would have complimented what my ‘employer’ was offering in their planned spa area but they were unwilling to employ ‘couples’. Unless you were connected to one of the top two guys and then that rule didn’t apply. The whole thing put considerable strain on our relationship. She blames me for wanting to go in the first place (understandable).

  I also missed the wedding of my oldest friend (we lived next door as toddlers – so have known each other our whole lives). This I deeply regret too. There is very little to take from the whole episode.

  I am choosing to ignore the lesson learnt from the whole experience – namely don’t trust friends in major matters. I think that would be an unfortunate way to approach life. I’ve had a few people who I thought were friends let me down over the time I was a stripper. Deep down though I always knew they would. They were very insecure people and it was inevitable. I didn’t expect this from my friend in Dubai. He was clearly using performance enhancers and has always had a preponderance to get addicted to their effects. He didn’t approve of my disapproval but this didn’t drive a wedge between us. Silver spoon probably did a fair bit of wedge driving behind the scenes, but still, there was something else.

  My friend had transformed from a long haired, easy going academic who managed on a modest salary to a highly paid drone who couldn’t afford to live on less than a quarter of a million dollars per year. Those who conflicted with this view would be happily sacrificed. Do people really change that much or do they just reveal their true colours over time ?

  He actually asked me if I was going to hire a live-in maid! He was unrecognizable from the guy I used to know. I understand that his priorities had shifted and his life was a bit different. However, how much can one man totally change ? When talking to someone else about this she suggested that maybe my friend was delusional. Maybe he thought my arrival would speed things up and sooth over the fractious relationship with silver spoon. I’d just given up my entire existence, moved out my family and changed my name to come and play gym in another part of the world. If he couldn’t deliver on what he’d been promising because of barriers from silver spoon, it would have been nice if he had at least been honest about it. I could have at least made an informed decision to walk away with less losses or soldier on together. Yet, he’d lost his empathy. If he’d given up his life to move part way around the world and get messed about in that manner, I know he’d be apoplectic. If it happened to somebody else it wasn’t his problem – even if he was the architect.

  I swallowed a lot of shit that I simply wouldn’t have tolerated if I was in England. If it wasn’t for my friend I simply never would have gone. I didn’t trust anything I was being told by anybody else. Their business practices were straight out of the Wild West. I could see this but I wanted to believe it would be good. I trusted my friend. Yet, he appears to have been complicit. The trust I gave him is something I now bitterly regret

  When I was first approached about the offer from my friend, I thought I’d owe him a huge debt if it panned out. I’ve never had anything just land on a plate for me before. I have to fight for everything. Sure enough it was too good to be true and in fact the whole experience has been costly both financially and emotionally. Coming to terms with the betrayal of a friend is never easy. People let you down in life. I have overcome things before and will again. Alas, when you are attacked from the inner circle it is so much harder to simply shake off. Because it is my trust that was exploited, it’s difficult not to lay some of the blame on myself. However, I want to believe I can trust those close to me. To live in a state of mind so high in cynicism is not a good place. It perhaps leaves me open and vulnerable to being exploited by those closest to me. However, so be it. I’ll take my chances. There are some good people out there. Occasionally, I let the wrong ones get too close.

  However, perhaps this was simply a case of a stripper adjusting badly after returning to the real world ? I’ve analysed this to death now (as is my way). I really don’t think so. In fact I was readily accepted there until it became impossible for me to hide my contempt for silver spoon any longer. Silver spoon thought I’d be ok in his institution until my contempt began to literally ooze from my pores. If there was some genuine funding and my friend had actually been in charge it might have been ok. Silver spoon had an uncanny ability to get people to follow his psychopathic behavior. My friend succumbed.

  About a month before I left I went to be sleep at night feeling somewhat anxious. I could see how far down the alley I had been led. I awoke in the middle of the night calmed. I realized that if I could put up with all the nonsense I had tolerated the previous few months, I could easily return to a corporate life and presumably earn a lot more money than they were offering. For the last decade I have doubted whether I could ever do that again. I suddenly realized that I could. I awoke and said to my other half that there would likely be a day soon when I would come home and say that we have to leave (her salary was far too small to support us alone). It wasn’t long in coming.

  I arrived back in darkest December. I’d kept in touch with my friend, Roger, by email. I’d told him we’d likely be leaving soon. Roger is 87 and was living alone. He expressed how lonely he was. I suggested upon returning we come and stay. He actually wrote back saying that in life we have to deal with tiresome bosses and that he was sure it would be ok. There are tiresome bosses and there are dictators. Roger met us at the airport.

  For the first month back it was difficult. I actually was looking at the jobs pages, thinking about investment banking. I phoned a few key agents and started stripping again. I needed to repurchase some costume items I had discarded. At first I felt a little resentful. I didn’t like having to restrict my diet to get the look of a stripper back. I can’t get away with eating what I want anymore. I didn’t like having to cut my hair really short to hide the emerging grey. At 41 years old I can’t cut corners like I did in my 20s. I wasn’t enjoying it. In truth, the fact that I was stripping reinforced what a failure the whole Dubai experience had been.

  Prior to going to Dubai I had invested in some properties. The fact I had debts again for the first time in years actually meant I felt stress in a way I hadn’t felt in years. You can imagine how having no income coming in over there made this worse ! Some of the properties needed something called a statutory leasehold extension. It’s costly but I save some money by doing all the legal work and surveying work myself. I figured I might as well strip and conclude these before thinking about a real job. I didn’t want to get a real job and then find myself jobless again because I’d thrown a tiresome boss through his office window. If I was treated the way I was treated in Dubai, but in England, it would be a distinct possibility! Unlike Jeremy Clarkson, I wouldn’t have throngs of people campaigning for me to keep my job. I also didn’t want to quit stripping again and have to fall back on it because something didn’t work out. It seemed more sensible to reduce the debt burden and have less worries.

  I’m nearly there. However, stripping is so adept at keeping me from the stresses of the real world I now feel anxious again about the possibility of getting a real job. Ever since I have left unive
rsity I have been trying to get a job in sports. I was offered positions usually reserved for the privileged but had to decline the offers because I couldn’t afford to eat. I put my own money into my own sports management company. It was ambitious and it failed. It cost me money. I’ve been for jobs in gym settings and had personality clashes with senior management. Dubai was probably the final hurrah in the sports field. Only stripping has afforded me that ‘professional athletic’ lifestyle. I’ve looked – sports don’t really pay well unless you get lucky. I’m not lucky.

  I’ve considered simply running my own PT business out of my own ‘garage gym’. It’s possible but in truth it doesn’t inspire me. I love training and competing with like minded people. However, I think I’d struggle helping the slightly overweight housewife. I’d be bored and maybe it would remind me too much of what might have been. Maybe later in life, but right now it doesn’t feel right.

  I’ve thought about life coaching and using my experiences to maybe inspire others to reach their goals. It’s a possibility but right now it would mean starting another business from scratch. I feel I need an income injection to push towards my retirement goals. I don’t really want to be scrabbling around in the dirt searching for the next customer just now.

  Perhaps the truth is that some structure would be healthy for me right now. It has also worked for me before. Also, maybe I need to feel the pain of being a corporate drone to instill in me the drive to set up my own business in something else.