Now, I know that I shouldn't complain about being paid to sit around and do nothing, but believe me it is less pleasant than you think. Maybe it is because I can't stand doing nothing, or maybe it because I knew that there was lots of work that should be done, but that would be presumptuous or impossible of me to do, like, make an organizational chart, or establish a consistent policy on lecture times and attendance policy across the board since from what I could tell, everyone was just making it up. Or or gather resources and make lesson plans for the next semester but since no one could tell me if or what I would be teaching, there wasn't much I could do in those terms.
I occupied my time with catching up on my blog and trying to get back to learning Arabic, but being interrupted periodically by former students coming in to tell me they missed me and wished I was their teacher again. Either they are very hypocritical, or more likely, the complaints really were all coming from one or two students. Still, it meant a lot to me that they stopped by to chat. Maybe I was making small differences after all.
So, I was sitting there trying to remember the word "before" in Arabic when I got a phone call. It was May, from the publishing company that I interviewed for a month and a half before. I had forgotten about the job altogether, but she was calling to make me an offer.
I was excited, after all, what was I doing here at the college? Certainly not working. So, why not? It would be an opportunity to try something new, and to be honest I was feeling like I really needed a break from teaching. When I got the offer, I was a little disappointed. It was only about $150 dollars less per month than I was making now, but I would have to find my own accommodation and transportation, which would mean that I would actually be making even less.
I immediately started in on some research to find out how much housing and transportation would cost me and was quickly frustrated and disappointed. Finding housing was not going to be easy. Most of the ads were for bachelor men, or strangely, by nationality, Filipino only! or We are looking for Indians! There were some places that looked promising, but when I called and they found out I was a single American woman, the told me that it wasn't safe for me there. It was clear that the places in my price range were not meant for single women, but rather for bachelors willing to share apartments, often with up to 4 men sharing one room! When I narrowed my search to places that would accept single females, prices shot up. Only compounds were available. Things weren't looking good for this job. Unless I could find a female willing to share accommodations, there was no way I could afford to live anywhere near the office, and the further I got from the office, the more I would be spending on transportation, meaning it would be even less affordable.
And of course, there was still the issue of transferring. It was now nearly two months since I started working for the college and I still didn't have an iqama. This might be a good thing or a bad thing. Since technically Education Experts was still my sponsor, I decided to call them and see if they would transfer me to the publishing company instead of the college. I was shocked when I got a hold of the government relations officer right away. I asked him about transferring, and he told me he could transfer me to whomever Suleiman wanted them to transfer me to. I asked them why Suleiman had anything to do with it and he made a sort of general comment referring to the fact that they had made some deal whereby the Suleiman got them out of trouble with the Ministry of Labor in exchange for me. So he told me to call Suleiman and if Suleiman agreed, he would do it today.
I called Suleiman. I reminded him of our deal, that I would work for the college if he could get me my iqama in a week. I pointed out that it was now nearly two months later and still no iqama, so I wanted to transfer to the other company. He got very upset and told me that if I wanted to do that, I would have to pay Education Experts a lot of money. I explained to him that in fact, I had just talked to Education Experts and they were fine with it so long as he agreed. So then he said, that I would have to pay him If I wanted the transfer. I asked him what for, and he said all the time and effort he put in to get my iqama. I told him that so far, he hadn't done anything as far as I could see because I still didn't have my iqama. He got very angry at that and told me that he would tell them to give me a final exit then. I told him to tell me just how much money we were talking about. He said 80,000 SR. I actually laughed out loud. I couldn't help it. That's somewhere in the range of $20,000. That is a ridiculous amount of money. I told him there was no way a) that was a realistic estimation of the time and effort he put in, and b) that I could ever pay that money. He said, fine. Just continue to work at the college then. I told him that legally, I couldn't continue to work there since I still wasn't legal and didn't have an iqama. And reminded him again of our deal, and that he hadn't upheld his end of the bargain. He said fine, do whatever you want, he didn't care anymore. I told him that if he didn't care, then why wouldn't he let them transfer me to publishing company. He said, I cannot. If you want to get your iqama, I'll get your iqama for the college and then you can ask them to transfer you if you want, but I will not let tell the old company to release you to anyone but the college.
Well, that was discouraging. But the thing is, I'm a very stubborn person. And Suleiman telling me I can't, for no reason other than personal greed, just made me want to transfer even more. I decided to write back to May about the offer. I told her I really wanted to take the job, but there were two obstacles in the way. One was the issue with my iqama, which I had told them about in the interview and which still wasn't solved, and the other was the money. I asked if they could increase the offer since I wasn't having much luck finding anywhere to live in the price range they had allocated to the housing allowance.
So we will see what they say.
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