The internet in the Lobby was a lot stronger than the internet in the room, so I woke up early and sat in the lobby to write emails and try to do some more research about my rights according to Saudi Labor law, which was helpful to know, but since they weren't enforced, wasn't all that helpful in the long run. For example, according to the labor laws, the employee should be in possession of his or her iqama and passport. The company should not hold on to either one. However, common practice with all companies is to keep one or the other at all times. So, the information is useful to have, but not necessarily useful in the practical sense that it will get you what you want. I must have looked pretty knowledgeable in the lobby looking up all of this information because a woman in a leopard print scarf came down and asked me if I knew when the bus for the interviews was going to come. I told her I didn't know but that there would be a bus to the office at 9am. She said no one had told her where the interviews would be, at the university or at the company office, and that no one was answering her calls to clarify or tell her when the bus would arrive. I told her that no communication was typical with this company, and in my head I said "Run! Get out now while you can!" but out loud all I said was, "If lack of professionalism, disorganization, and misinformation bother you, you should think very hard about weather or not working for this company is right for you."
When the bus did arrive, I was joined by a woman named Wajida, who had arrived in April around the same time I did. Because it was too late in the academic year to place her, she and all the other teachers who arrived later were asked to work in the office. They wanted them to help with filing, answering emails, and general stuff around the office. Wajida was sweet and helpful and very sympathetic. Since she had been working in the office she knew first hand what kind of stuff went down and how disorganized everything was. She had seen and heard it all before. She and her husband were finally being placed in teaching positions in Al Jouf. I was a little surprised that they had agreed to go since they knew about the conditions in Al Jouf from all of the emails sent by other teachers. She told me she was worried, because she knew that if they had any problems, they would not be able to get them resolved in Al Jouf and would have to come to the office in Riyadh (a 10 hour bus ride) to get it sorted out. However, she was excited to begin teaching, after all, that was what they had been hired to do, and she was hoping that the 5 months they had spent working in the office would give them some sort of an advantage in getting things processed from afar. I hope she is right.
The morning was slow for me. Mohammed told me the guy would not return from immigration until after 2pm, so there was really nothing I could do but wait. In the meantime, I helped myself to a cappuccino. There was a nice coffee and hot chocolate dispenser in the office available for anyone to use anytime, which was probably the only perk to being in the office. I soon found out that the interviews were being held in the office, and Wajida received several panicked phone calls from teachers who were scheduled for interviews at 10am, and it was now 10 to, and still, no bus had come. While she sorted out transportation for them, the woman conducting the interviews was rushing around looking for paper. Just like at the university, paper seemed to be in very limited supply. The finance guy, Faisal, who is the only one who I had seen constantly rushing around and looking like he was doing his job, kept post it notes in the pocket of his thobe, and kept his printer paper under lock and key so they wouldn't go missing. He used post it notes a lot. Every sheet of paper on his desk had a post it note. and there were several on the desk and wall around him also. I admired his attempt at organization in all the chaos.
I went to get a second cup of coffee, and when I came back, Faisal and Mohammed were both gone, presumably dealing with some new crisis. I saw that Mohammed had a stack of post it notes too, and so I borrowed one and a pen and wrote Faisal a thank you note for being the hardest worker in the office and stuck it to his computer monitor. I figured he deserved a little appreciation. Then, because no one had returned yet, and I was bored, I grabbed another sticky note and made Faisal a To Do list that included: take a break, get a coffee, smoke some shisha, and take a nap. I had never seen him do any of those things, even though many others in the office did pretty much nothing but that. I hoped he had a sense of humor.
When Mohammed and Faisal came back, Faisal saw the note. He smiled and looked around.
"Did you put this here?" he asked Mohammed. Mohammmed shook his head. Faisal patted his thobe pocket just to be sure his sticky notes were still there, and no one had stolen them to leave the note, and then smiled again. A few minutes later he found the To Do list. Again he accused Mohammed. Mohammed said "Walla (I swear) I didn't do it!" and he looked around again. He saw me and asked if I had seen who put it on his desk, and I just shrugged. I asked him what it said. He proudly told me someone thought he worked too hard. I said, "You do work hard, and by the way, when will I get my visa and medical cost reimbursed?" So, we made some more copies of my receipts (this would make the third time they had been submitted), and I filled out the form again. This time Faisal went to the head office in finance himself and gave me a signed note that it would be in my next paycheck. See, it pays to butter people up, even if they don't know it is you doing the buttering.
Mohammed asked me to come with him a little after 1pm. He said, I want you to talk to the Human Resources manager. He said, "We don't want you to go. Please just talk to him. He will help you." So we went and waited outside his office, as he was in a meeting still. I needed to go to the bathroom, but I didn't want to miss the chance to speak with the head of human resources. Mohammed and I were waiting, when someone came in and grabbed Mohammed to take care of something else. Meanwhile, two men came out of the Human Resources Office shaking hands, and the first guy looked briefly at me sitting and waiting but them went back into his office. I wasn't sure what to do, should I just walk in? I didn't want to miss my chance, but I didn't want to be rude... Just as I was standing up, trying to decide if I should walk toward his office or toward a bathroom, Mohammed returned and brought me into the office. The Human Resources manager asked me if I would stay if they gave me the housing allowance and let me move out. I told him only if they also gave the housing allowance to all of the other women in Dammam. He seemed surprised by this. He told me they would move the teachers in September. I told him to show me some proof of that. A signed lease for a new building, or proof that they had cancelled the lease of the old building, anything. He said something to Mohammed in Arabic, and Mohammed thanked him and pulled me out into the hallway. "Well, we tried." he said. I asked him where the bathroom was (those two cups of coffee were really getting to me) and he looked around quickly and said, go in here and lock the door behind you. It was a big bathroom with three stalls, but he told me to lock the main door. There is no women's restroom, he told me, just use the men's one and lock it so no one comes in. I was surprised. I asked him what the women who worked her did, or all the teachers who came like me? "There are only two women who work here," he said. I asked how many men worked here. "Oh, 75 or 80." he said. I shook my head and went in, locking the door behind me.
When I got back, Mohammed issued me into Osama's inner office. I was excited thinking that maybe they had my passport or my Iqama or something. It was wishful thinking. Instead they were sitting around eating lunch, and they had gotten me a chicken sandwich. That was very nice of them. We sat around, about 5 or 6 guys from the office and I, eating chicken sandwiches and feeling awkward. They wanted to talk in Arabic, but felt bad doing it in front of me. So they searched helplessly for safe topics in English. Finally we talked about their kids. Osama has three kids. Mohammed has a four year old. I don't remember the names of all the other guys, but kid antics are always a winning topic. After lunch, Osama asked me if I was sure I wanted to resign. I said I had been sure since I first submitted it in Dammam. He told me he hadn't sent the paperwork to HR yet. I asked him why not. He told me because he wanted me to stay. I said, I was sorry, but if they had really wanted me to stay, then they wouldn't have ignored my emails and phone calls for 5 months, and the requests of teachers to leave the housing for over a year. He said he understood, then he said, last day, Sept. 4th? I said sooner if possible. He said, Sept. 4th, and I said ok, because I didn't want to push it seeing as how I had already fudged the date. He said he would give it to HR that day.
With nothing to do but wait for news of my iqama, I sat down again in the waiting chairs. I had another cup of coffee, and I wrote Faisal a few more post-its. By this time he was frantically going about asking everyone, did you write this? Did you? All the while grinning from ear to ear. I had to find someway to keep myself entertained, and watching Faisal try to piece the puzzle together was the most fun I'd had in 2 days. A woman in full niqab and even gloves to cover her hands came in to wait for Osama. As usual Osama was busy, and then when he finally emerged, he ignored her. I thought perhaps he hadn't heard her, so I helped her get his attention. Osama yelled at me, "No Jennie, I will not see her. You know, I have seen her a thousand times? I will not see her anymore."
I was shocked. The woman rolled her eyes. They were all I could see of her. She tried to explain her situation to me. Which seemed to boil down to the fact that she arrived in Saudi 5 months pregnant (which the company had to have known about because part of the medical for the visa is a pregnancy test) and then when she arrived, none of the universities would hire her because she was so very pregnant. The company couldn't technically fire her, but they pushed her to resign only she refused. So they fired her anyway saying that she didn't disclose she was pregnant when they hired her (she has emails that prove she had). Meantime, her husband is also working for the company, so she stayed in Saudi (also because by now she was 8 months pregnant and couldn't fly back to the UK) so she ended up giving birth prematurely here, but because the company brought them over on single visas instead of married visas (no one is sure why they do this except that presumably it is less paperwork), none of the medical costs were covered (because there is no such thing here as unmarried pregnant women - at least not as far as the insurance is concerned). So now she is trying to get the money they owe her for medical costs, and her husband hasn't been paid in 2 months (separate issue). They wanted to get a lawyer, but they couldn't afford to pay one which is what the company counts on. They assume (usually correctly) that foreigners are ignorant enough about the laws here, and separated enough from any support, and jerked around so much that eventually they give up and leave without the money they are entitled to just to escape the nightmare. It is absolutely crazy to me how this company is even still in business, and even scarier if you believe those who say that this company is the best of the worst companies.
Three o'clock came and went, and I was still waiting for news about my passport. Mohammed took me up to the government relations office and spoke with someone there whose official line was that the computer system at the immigration office was down today, so they didn't get the iqama. Mohammed said, inshallah, tomorrow, and even though I felt like tearing my hair out in frustration, I smiled and said "Yes, inshallah." "Stay another night, we will pay," Mohammed said, "Don't leave without your passport."
I hadn't planned on it. But I also hadn't planned on being there more than one day. I went to find Wajidah, who consoled me and offered me chocolate, which even though I don't really like it, made me feel a lot better. "Tomorrow is another day," she told me as we took the bus back to the hotel. That night, I did all my laundry in the sink. I figured I would use the hairdryer in the bathroom to dry my clothes, or at least my underwear to have something to sleep in. It was a perfect plan until I noticed that the plug for the hairdryer and the outlet in the wall did not match. And because the hairdryer was permanently mounted on the wall, I couldn't move it to another outlet. I just shook my head. It figures. Then I remembered the iron and ironing board. So I got them out and watched Al Jazeera naked while ironing my underwear dry. I had been feeling pretty helpless all day, and even though it was an absurd situation, It felt good to finally be able to do something to fix a problem, instead of just hoping it would work itself out. I wouldn't say naked ironing was my proudest moment in Saudi Arabia, but it was surprisingly high on the list.
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