Top 10 ways to make money in a recession

So Forex turned out to be a scam, the stock market tanked, and renting your apartment to a Gulf tourist is no longer an easy route to a small fortune before your 40th birthday. You’re now dragging yourself every morning to work just to keep up with the SUV payments, and no matter what you do, your woman still wants to spend like Warren Buffett’s lovechild after a successful paternity suit. Here, though, are ten ways that any young Jordanian can stay ahead of the game during these bleak economic times.


10. Open a pharmacy
It’s an Arab tradition: if the nuclear family has 5-7 children, the eldest must become an engineer, and the second a pharmacist. On our office block alone there are four different pharmacies – and all are doing quite well, which no doubt has plenty to do with the fact that in a recession, anti-depressant and sleeping pill sales skyrocket.
“I really didn’t want to get into pharmacy at all,” says Yazan Khalaf, 25, who works in his family’s shop. “I just wanted to be a skater dude. But now it’s great. I make good money, the working hours are flexible... and girls really love a man in a white coat. I couldn’t want anything better in a job." Access to drugs, social recognition, while practically working as a cashier. It does not get any easier.



9. Become a taxi driver outside of a 5-star hotel
Most visitors to Amman have fallen foul of this practice at least once. Upon leaving the refined surroundings of your hotel, a yellow cab miraculously arrives the second you hit the sidewalk. Half way to Sweifieh  you realise the metre isn’t on. “Mafi ’adad, ya habibi,” he will then say, digging an extended nail into his right ear. “This is special hotel cab. It will be seven dinars.” You can either argue, using the very reasonable defence that it usually only costs 750 fils – hey, you’re not a stranger here – or walk for half an hour next morning to ensure that the cabs you get are real, off-the-street ones.
Although illegal, you too can do it – just get the car and the hotel, and you can cream inexperienced business travellers from dawn ‘til dusk. At six dinars for a 10-minute journey, it’s way less than what he pays back home. He’ll probably even tip out of gratitude.



8. Become a translator in Iraq
Ever wanted to experience the thrills of a dangerous occupation? And there’s no more dangerous occupation than America’s in Iraq, right? Moving to Baghdad has to be one of the easiest ways to make a buck in the recession; as it’s horribly dangerous, the US is still having to spend millions on basic HR functions. Like translation. After six years, no American has yet learned how to speak Arabic, let alone read it. 
NOX saw a newspaper ad asking for translators who are “willing to travel”, which is code for “travel to Iraq”. The “recruitment agency” turned out to be a footwear shop, and the salesman was the person who interviewed us. A few other applicants lingered, showing off their Hollywood English, and when the salesman finally sat down to talk through the job, there was only one requirement – the ability to run like the wind, since we’ll be working with foreign contractors and the US army in different places in Iraq. We were even told that there is a good life insurance policy if anything “doesn’t go quite right”.



7.Become a private tutor
 There’s nothing a rich person can stand less than the prospect that their cherished first-born might be a cretin, and at the first sign of bad grades from the posh pre-school, the dining room will be flooding with one-on-one tutors. So there are plenty of openings for BA-wielding, English-speaking chaps to educate snot-nosed heirs to import-export fortunes – after all, it’s clearly the school’s fault his genius isn’t being unearthed.
In fact, one large private school in Amman offers assistance to help you seek out a private tutor – while stating this is not part of their education programme. Way to admit defeat from the outset, guys. The most popular courses you can offer are: English language, because no one wants the embarrassment of having their child use Arabic around the house; science, because he might only be six years old, but med school is only 12 years away; and French, because Lebanese kids are way more fashionable.



6. Start making bad video clips
Let’s be clear: We do not endorse the production, purchase or trading of sexually explicit material. Sadly, we also know there’s a huge market for it, and in the Arab world, there is one sure-fire way to satisfy it – music video clips. And the added bonus of a recession is that there are plenty of young women desperate enough to be famous that they will wear whatever you tell them to. Which might not be very much.  
So, you can become Jordan’s very own Sherif Sabri, the man who “discovered” Ruby. All you need is a hot girl, a cheesy pop song – anything from the 4 Cats back catalogue will do – and you can unleash a new singing phenomenon. And think of yourself as a male feminist: you’re allowing women to take control over their lives – and, erm, bodies – and equalise the unfair overall salary structure between men and women.



5. Franchise an American food restaurant
Have you seen Mecca Street recently? If you have any doubts that bringing an American junk-food franchise to Amman will have people lining up in bunches, consider that three fried chicken franchises and three pizza franchises now have more than 25 branches between them. And despite the seeming imbalance in cost between a triple-deck heart-attack burger and a felafel sandwich, last week we paid 1JD for the latter and, last time we were in the States, a Taco Bell beef and cheese burrito cost just 1.25JD. Hardly a rip-off – and it wasn’t actually that bad.
The latest trend, though, is in larger-scale “family” dining, where American fast food comes on a plate – meaning they can charge you triple the price for a burger and fries. Chili’s, Applebee’s and TGI Friday’s (now without alcohol!) are mushrooming in a culture where “going out” is a simply a euphemism for “eating out”. So, we can look forward to White Castle at City Mall any day now.



4. Call yourself a consultant
Here is a painful fact: Governmental offices in Jordan are infested with a breed of highly-paid and mildly-qualified individuals whose job description is vague at best – at worst, completely non-existent. They’re called consultants, but whom they consult, and on what, remains a coveted and highly lucrative secret.
For instance, let’s say that you are a columnist at a daily newspaper. With an unexceptional career of ass-kissing that pays homage to the powerful, you can now give yourself the most highly-prized title in the Arab world: a media consultant.
The phenomenon has even spread to the private sector. There was one major bank who employed a “culture consultant” – allegedly at around $10,000 a month – with the task of deciding which low-rent “news” websites get the bank’s advertisement money. Is that the dream job or what?



3. Launch a TV channel
For about $35,000 a month, you can get an office in Amman equipped with two computers (to setup your channel logo and layout, and to manage SMS messages), a Playbox (a channel playout server known as “TV channel in a box”), a mixer, an A/C unit and a phone. The cost can significantly drop if you choose material that does not need a high rate of data frequency, like chat screens. You can start broadcasting instantly.

Some college-leavers for staff
Hire a couple of employees ($350 to $400 a month should do) to work the computers and broadcasting device, and a manger ($600-ish), or just get your little brother and his friends to stop by whenever they can.

Some content, any content
Because showing pirated DVDs could land you in prison, and because buying content is too expensive, you will have to produce your own stuff. A news or current affairs channel, for instance, needs nothing more than a studio and two people blabbering nonsense, while some Gulf channels seem to rely exclusively on interviewing teenage boys, bum-fluff moustache and all, in shopping centres about their cars or Blackberrys.
 
A marketing plan
Hire a fleet of very cool, influential high-school kids as “agents” to simply talk a lot about your channel. The sheep will then follow. Also, make sure you have some “accidental porn”, where a semi-nude women will “appear”. The more you apologise for it, the more viewers you will get in the hope of another “slip”.



2.Create an NGO
Step 1: Set up a blog that covers the issues you want to address. Human rights and democracy are always good in this era of values-based slaughter, but as everything will be tightly monitored by the censors, we recommend something safer: honour killing is a good one, as is anything to do with ill-educated, malnourished children. But don’t forget that Westerners have different values – so that stray cat shelter should remain on the table.

Step 2: Search for US-based organisations concerned with your issue. PETA would go for the cat shelter, and they have a solid budget for international projects. US Aid, though, tends to like politically-relevant “development” projects – you know, teaching six-year-olds how they can demand free market economics and faith-based schools at the ballot box – so it can pay to think long-term and wildly ambitious.

Step 3: Send e-mails and petitions to your chosen organisation, and if you can include pictures, so much the better. Bleeding donkeys tug at American heart strings, and they should be easy enough to find. Bonus points if you can include sexual assault stories – with women, that is, not donkeys.

Step 4: Rent a small office in Weibdeh, hold a couple of events (attended by five of your family members) featuring a key-note speaker, an obscure band and a photo gallery. Before long, you will earn the description of an “active civil society figure” – and eventually a job in a ministry.

PS: If anybody tries to audit you, play “government interference with NGO independence” and set up another NGO to defend that cause. More cash.



1. Get a sugar Momma
If you follow the advice of a certain Countess Cougar, gold giver extraordinaire, you could be laughing all the way to the Arab Bank. Rich women, she says, are looking for bright, fun, educated, witty and fashionable men to spend their money on. We know you can do this – and here’s how:

Keep yourself well-groomed: Sugar mommas pay a lot of attention to their appearance; men should do the same.
Cut down on youthful words: Too much “like” and “yanni” is neither mature nor articulate.

Don’t be too grown-up: A kept man ceases to be fun the minute he starts acting like an overbearing ex-husband.

Learn to cook: If you think your sugar momma has time to waste in the kitchen, you are in for quite a surprise. Besides, you get extra points for being her beau and chef.

Don’t mention Mrs Robinson: In fact, don’t even hum the tune – it’s not remotely charming.

Don’t be insecure: They want to enjoy spending money on you, not worry about your delicate emotions in bed. 
Fall in love with shopping: Well, at least fake it really well.

Don’t confuse a sugar momma with, you know, an actual momma: She won’t keep you around because you remind her of her real children. That would just be too creepy.

Also see:
Top 10 Ways to screw up Valentine’s Day
Top 10 ways to be a better Arab