Working from Home

My new company had assured me that since they had given me the three letters, the had to transfer me, and that the best thing to do now was just lay low.  They would get tired of having me hang around on their visa, and eventually would want to transfer me on their own, especially to avoid paying the cost of the plane ticket back to America for me.

So I didn't contact anyone at Al Farabi, and it seemed for all intents and purposes that they had forgotten about me too.  Two weeks went by and I had not heard anything from them.

Then I was called in to see the boss of my new company.  I knew something was up when both the admin guy and May (who doubles as human resources) were there.  I thought I had done something wrong already, even though I hadn't worked there for long and started wracking my brain for things I might have done.  So even though it was still bad news, I was relieved when the told me that actually, the problem was with immigration, not my job performance.

We have a few people who work at the National Water Company full time, and turns out, the NWC recieved a visit from the authorities.  Normally this would be fine, except that it just so happens that the two guys who work for us over there happen to have issues with their iqama's.  One man's iqama needed to be renewed, which wasn't a big deal since the company had the paperwork in for him already and it was just pending, but the other man was here on his son's iqama, and it is technically illegal to work for the company full time unless you are under their iqama, so my new company would have to pay a huge fine, and transfer him to their iqama, which is something he may not be willing to do, since it means that he could only stay in Saudi so long as he was working with the company.  If he stays on his son's family visa, he can come and go as he pleases and he can stay as long as his son stays.

The company was understandably concerned that they were now under a microscope, and that even though we had the transfer letters, and the application for transfer was in and pending, meaning that we were 100% correct and legal, they didn't really want to take any chances of incurring any more fines.  Since I couldn't come into the office, in case immigration came and demanded to see everyone's iqama, they were sending me to work from home for today.  Tomorrow, I was supposed to go in to Al Farabi, and try to meet with them once again to see what could be done about the transfer, but for now, I should just go home.

So I packed up my laptop and headed for home.  I suppose I should have known from the get go that simply not doing anything couldn't have worked as a solution for long.  Still, I was worried.  On the taxi ride home I felt a little like I was on the uphill part at the beginning of a roller coaster.  I was excited to be working from home; you can always get more done at home. But there was that feeling of dread about what will happen when you reach the top.  There have been so many swings in fortune for me during this whole process, I can't help but feel that this one might be a downward turn somehow.  I guess I will find out tomorrow, when I go back to Al Farabi and see what more can be done.