Transfering

After I got the amended offer from May, where the agreed to an increase in salary, I began feeling out if I would be able to transfer or not.

I went to Dr. Salem, with whom I had originally met with to sign the contract, and who had told me to let me know if there was anything I needed.  So I went to him and explained that my classes had been taken from me since the students didn't like how strict I was.  I told him that the final straw for me had been when in the meeting with the man (whom I still do not know his name or title) had basically agreed with me that everything I was asking of the students was correct and best practices and the right thing educationally, but that there bottom line was that they couldn't loose any tuition over it. I told him that he had presented the college to me as a place wanting to change, as an educational institute dedicated to improving educational standards, but that from all of the actions I had seen so far, they were really only dedicated to lining their own pockets. I told him that we had given it a good try, but that it was clear that the college wasn't ready for western staff or western style teaching.  I said that I would like to transfer to another job, away from teaching, to the publishing company.

He expressed great concern over this meeting with this guy.  He wanted to call him in at once and berate him.  I told him I'm sure he was only following orders and repeating what his bosses had told him.  I explained that individually, a lot of people at Al Farabi had helped me out a lot and were very kind, but one of the biggest problems was that everyone was working individually and there was no coherent structure.  I pointed out how I had been at the college for nearly 2 months and had only been introduced to the head of the English Department a week ago.  He asked who that was, and I told him some woman, since I still didn't know her name.  He looked confused and told me that she wasn't the head of the English Department at all and called some other man, Abdullah into the office whom I had never met.  This, he said, is the head of the English department.  Case and point, I said.  I have never met this man, and some woman obviously thinks she is in charge, so no one really knows for sure.

He assured me they would fix everything.  He asked me to write down all the things that I thought were wrong or needed improvement and to bring it to Dr. Abdullah, and then we could talk about this.  I spent the whole afternoon and came up with a four page list of suggestions.  I showed it to Dr. Abdullah, who asked me to show it to another person, the head of academics in general, and they both said that they were all very good recommendations and that they would try to implement them, and I told them I was glad they were willing to try, and I hoped it would work out for them, but that I still wanted to transfer.  So they sent me back to Dr. Salem, who had gone home for the day.

The next day I spoke with him again and he told me, that if I didn't like it here, they could send me to Jeddah.  This was a little bit of a surprise.  In the beginning I had asked about Jeddah because Suleiman told me they needed teachers there too and it seemed like a better place to live than Riyadh.  At the time he said there were no positions open in Jeddah, but now suddenly there were?  Hmmm....
I told him I would think about it.

On the one hand, I really wanted to try something other than teaching.  On the other hand, the pay would be higher if I stuck with teaching and I could still have a change, and see a whole other part of Saudi.  On the other hand, I had no idea what I would do about housing if I transferred and I'm sure they would want me out ASAP after I transferred.  If I went to Jeddah instead, the housing and transportation would be sorted out for me.  On the other hand, I had just started to make friends in Riyadh and I was even doing activities, and I was just settling in.  I would have to start all over again if I went to Jeddah.  It went on and on like this in my head all afternoon.  Every-time I felt like I had made a decision, I would think of something that would push the scales back another way.

That night I consulted some of my new friends in Riyadh.  One of the girls I had met through a friend from Dammam, Alison, offered to let me stay with her until I could find a place of my own close to my new job.  She was planning on going home for a month for Christmas, so the place would be empty in a week or two anyway, and she told me she would rather have someone staying there than let it be empty all the time.  That was the thing I needed to finally push me over the edge.  I committed.  I was really going to do it.

So the next day, I wrote out my letter of resignation, detailing all of the reasons why I didn't want to stay with the college, and asking them to let me transfer to the publishing company.  Dr. Salem didn't want to take it.  He asked me to reconsider and think about it over the weekend.  I told him I had made my decision.  I was sure, and I wanted to start work at the new company on Sunday morning.  He seemed surprised that it would happen so soon.  He told me to take the letter to HR.  In HR, there is a bald Egyptian man, who whenever he sees me yells at me for not knowing arabic.  He likes to brag that he went to America and learned English in a month.  Of course, he has to do his bragging through a translator because he can't say more than about 5 words in English.  It's all good natured teasing, but it means that every interaction I have with him takes 3 times longer than it should because we first have to have this conversation, and then he usually gives me a little mini-lesson in Arabic, sometimes he teaches me numbers (which I already know) or words for objects in the room, like stapler, or stamp.  Normally I would enjoy this kind of thing, but time was slipping away and i wanted to try to clear everything today.

So we waited to see the Head of Finance, and finally we went in to see him, and a third man did some calculations.  He told me I would have to pay 5,650 SAR if I wanted to transfer.  I asked him why, and he told me that the college had just paid 2,000 Riyals to transfer me from my old company, a standard fee, and 2500 Riyals for a work permit, since my initial work permit / visa had expired, 650 in fees for renewing my iqama (strange that there were renewal fees when I had never had one in the first place), and a 500 fine because the old company had not issued the first iqama on time.  I told them that all but the 2,000 should have been paid by the old company.  He agreed, but said that the college had agreed to pay them so that they could facilitate the transfer more quickly.  He said if I just wanted to take a final exit, then I wouldn't have to pay this.  But that if I wanted to transfer, I would have to pay since it had only just paid the fees and now I was leaving.  I could see why they wouldn't want to have to pay this money, but it seemed arbitrary to me that I would only have to pay it to transfer, but not to take a final exit.  After all, they were loosing out on having me as an employee either way...

By now it was almost time to go home.  I told the HR guy I would think about it, 5,650 is nearly half a months salary, so it's not a small amount of money.  I would need to see if Alef would be willing to pay any of it.  So it looked like I wouldn't be able to start Sunday after all, at least not Sunday morning.  At least I would have the weekend to figure it out.