Resigning Part 2: Day 1

Finally Sept. 4^th rolled around, my official last day of work with the old company.  Before I left last time, Mohammed had assured me that they could take care of everything in Riyadh without me there, and that I could stay in Dammam, with the exception of getting my final exit for which they needed my passport.  The head of HR had also told me that they legally had 2 weeks from my final working day to issue the final exit.  Two weeks would be the 18^th, but the week of the 18^th would be the start of classes.  I decided If I was going to have to go to Riyadh, it would be better to do it this week since it was only student orientation I would be missing and not any actual teaching.   I ran it by the new company, and they agreed that it would be best to try to get it done this week, and that they would not doc my pay if I had to be in Riyadh.  I thought that was pretty generous of them.

Knowing how crazy the office is on Sundays, I decided I would stay and work Sunday to see what I could find out by phone first, then go up on Monday if I needed to.  If the labor office hadn’t agreed to give the final exit yet, there wouldn't be much point in my going to wait around for them to change their minds.  On Sunday the 7^th, the first working day after my last official day, I called to see if there had been any progress with getting me an iqama and or a final exit.  Mohammed told me that everything was ready and I just needed to mail them my passport, and they would mail it back when it was finished.  I asked him if they had gotten the iqama or the final exit and he said that they would when they got the passport back.  I asked again if they were sure they could get it and I wouldn't have to wait around for it.  He said yes.  I told him I would come to Riyadh the next day.  He told me I didn't have to I could just mail my passport.  I told him I didn't trust them to mail it back at all, let alone in a timely manner, and that I would rather come in person.  He said, as you wish.  So I booked the train again for the wee hours of the next morning, packed for more than one day this time, and braced myself for what would likely be another frustrating week of waiting around in the company office.

When I arrived in Riyadh, I tried to get a taxi to the office.  The cheapest fare anyone was willing to give me was 100 riyals, which was crazy seeing as my train ticket had only been 60.  So I took a chance and called The company to see if they would send me a driver, which they did.  I spent the time waiting for him to show up using the electronic booking station to book seats on every train leaving Riyadh for Dammam for the next 4 days.  I didn’t want to end up being stuck in Riyadh for an extra night like last time.  I was hoping that all these precautions, packing for a week, booking tickets, would work like remembering to bring your umbrella.  If you are prepared for rain, it doesn’t.  If I’m prepared to stay, I may not have to.

The driver that came to pick me up happened to be the same one I had tried to learn Arabic with back when I first arrived in April.  He remembered me, but thankfully not my name, which I had led him to believe, was ‘mirror’ because of a small language miscommunication.  This time I discovered that he was from Yemen and that he liked driving but didn't like traffic, which pretty much exhausted the language I had learned so far.  Then I asked him if we would be passing an Al Raji bank ATM on our way to the office.  I wanted to find out if I had actually been paid for the month of August.   He said he would look for one, and I watched for one too, but since I had been up since 3am and only slept for two hours on the train, I didn’t stay awake for long.  When I woke up, we were pulling into a gas station with an Al Raji ATM.  I thanked the driver and while he waited in line for gas, I jumped out to try to use the ATM.  Unfortunately, this particular ATM wasn’t working.  The windows loading screen was frozen on the teleprompter.  Perfect.  I thought.  At least we tried.  I got back in and told the driver it was broken, which I felt pretty proud about because I had actually learned the word for broken in Arabic.  Then I told him no problem, another phrase in Arabic I had learned and found myself using a lot lately.  We finished filling up and then headed back out again. 

It had already been about a half an hour since leaving the train station, so I figured we must be nearly to the office by now.    I thought I recognized the intersection with the McDonald’s and Red Lobster near the hotel I was staying in last time and I wondered if he had misunderstood that I needed to go to the office and was taking me to the hotel instead.  Actually where he was taking me was another Al Raji Bank, bless him.  We pulled up behind another car and someone else jumped out, obviously also to use the ATM, I fell in line behind him, but he made a frustrated sound and walked away.  This ATM was also out of service.  What are the odds?  I was starting to wonder if a) the bank’s entire systems were down, or more likely, b) the entire universe was conspiring against me ever getting paid.  I got back in and told the driver the machine was broken again, and shrugged, trying to convey that it just wasn’t to be.  I thanked him for trying, but he got this look in his eye and drove off again.  We turned down several side-streets and winded our way past mosques and schools and compounds for another ten minutes or so.  I guessed we were taking a back way to the office since he had gone out of the way to find the ATM.  But instead we pulled up in front of another ATM.  I laughed at his determination, and thanked him again, saying inshallah this time it will work and jumped out.  Sure enough, third time is a charm.  I had been paid and I was able to withdraw the maximum daily amount.  I got back in significantly happier and a little richer and thanked him again. 

By the time we finally reached the office it was noon.  I was concerned that I had arrived too late in the day to actually get anything done, but as it turned out, one of the guys I needed to see had only just arrived.  I asked why he was late, and the secretary looked at his phone, and shrugged and said, oh, his isn’t really so late.   Saudi time prevails.  Mohammed told me to see this man in the finance office because before they could issue the final exit paperwork, I needed a document from finance saying we were all settled up, that I didn’t owe the company anything and they didn’t owe me anything.  So I went to finance.  Turns out, he was waiting on the attendance records from Dammam, so they could know what they needed to pay me.  So I went to the man who collects all the fingerprint records.   He printed off my attendance for August to Sept. 4^th, and another final clearance paper.  I thought it was odd because the attendance sheet was absolutely blank.   But he signed it and said it would be fine, so I took it to HR to have it signed, but he told me I needed finance to sign off on it before he could, and when I went to finance they said they couldn’t sign off on it until someone in HR signed off on it first.  The whole system seemed purposefully built on a system of catch 22s.  They also needed, as I originally suspected, the print outs from the fingerprint machine for the last month that said whether I was there, or absent or on vacation.  So I went back to get the attendance record, and as it turned out the fingerprint machine in Dammam only worked about 50% of the time, because most of the attendance records were missing.  So he asked me when my final day in Dammam was and I told him the 21^st was the last time I was there and that I had come to Riyadh on the 24^th to begin sorting out all the iqama business.  He said, okay, and then said, how about this… I will say your last day in Dammmam was the 29^th and that the fingerprint machine was malfunctioning so there was no record of it, and that you have been in Riyadh since then.  Fine, I said.  I had been expecting them to use my vacation days for the last week since I wasn’t at the University or in Riyadh, but he didn’t seem to care, and I wasn’t going to argue with them that they should pay me less after all of the stress they had been putting me through.

So I had him sign it and I took the form back to finance, who had me go back down and get a second signature, and then over to HR for another signature, and then back to finance.  I felt a little like a ping pong ball all afternoon going from office to office and back again.  Finally, everything was done with finance, and I was ready for the last piece.  I went to the government relations office and presented my final release from the company, the holy grail of paperwork, the last step before the final exit.  There were a group of men all waiting in the hallway for that same piece of paper, and they had been waiting for weeks to get it.  They looked on with thinly veiled envy.  I wasn't sure where in the process they were held up, or why mine had been streamlined, but I was very grateful.  I suspected that my sticky notes and car fresheners had paid off. 

The government relations guy asked me for my iqama, the same guy who I had asked the week before for all the paperwork regarding my delayed iqama.  I was just getting ready to start over with the whole explanation again, since he obviously didn't recognize me when the head of government relations invited me inside the sacred layer.  He sat down with me and said it was too late to go to the labor office today (it was already 3pm) but that he would go himself personally the next day.  He explained what a headache it had been for him dealing with the labor office because of the six visas that had the wrong name.  He said he changed the name and they still weren't happy.  He said they had done everything the labor office had asked them to do, but they still weren't happy.  He showed me a stack of papers, about a sixth of a ream of paper if I had to guess, of just my documents that they had submitted.  Ah hah!  I thought, so they do keep copies.  I eyed them and tried to pick up the packet but he quickly took it back.  I asked him If I could have a copy of all of this, but he said no, he would need it when he went with my passport to the labor office tomorrow.  I said, just a copy, and he said no, and because I could see that he really was frustrated, and really did seem to be trying to get the final exit, I decided not to push the issue.  He told me tomorrow they would get it any way they could, on top of the table, beneath the table, any way they had to.  I had to smile at his mixed up use of prepositions for the idiom and his genuine determination.  I wasn't at all convinced that the final exit would be issued tomorrow, but I was convinced that he was doing all he could to make it happen, and that now it really was in the hands of the ministry of labor.  So, reluctantly, I handed my passport back over so that he could take it first thing in the morning with the promise that I would have it back tomorrow, with or without the final exit.

I went back down to Mohammed who told me that if they didn't have it tomorrow, they would make a request to reinstate me so that they would pay me for my time while I was waiting for the final exit.  While I wouldn't mind an extra week of pay, the thought of signing any new contract with them after I have finally gotten that holy grail paper saying the company and I are square and finished made me feel slightly nauseous.  No way I wanted to go through this all again.  I told him we would see, and that inshallah the final exit would arrive tomorrow and it wouldn't be an issue.  Then I asked him to put me up for the night, and he told me to wait and said he would arrange it all.

Helpful teacher from before was still around.  I wish I could say that either one of us was surprised to still see the other still here, but we had both been around long enough to know better.  He offered to tell the housing people for me because if I waited for Mohammed to not be busy it would be ages.  So he went and spoke to them and sure enough after about 10 minutes the guy came to tell me I would be staying in Rayatona  and to wait downstairs in reception for the bus to take me.  I could feel a tickle in my throat and suspected I was getting a cold.  I would be very happy to get to a room and lay down, and hope it was going to be a mild cold, and not one of those really bad ones.  I honestly don't think I could handle being sick and the company at the same time.