The Offer

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.

Visiting FATE

During one of my many bored days of waiting around during the Eid Holiday, I had applied to a new women's college in Riyadh called FATE (Future Academic Training and Education), cute, huh?  I had one interview over skype with a woman named Caroline who was the head teacher.  She had been teaching in the middle east for going on 12 years now and she told me all about the company.  It  was a small family run business.  The wife had attended various language schools over the years to improve her English and often complained about the calibre of the programs.  They had initially wanted to move abroad to live and work, but life happens and they had their fifth child on the way and he was now a successful businessman in Saudi so there was no chance they would leave Saudi like he had promised when they were first married.  To make it up to her, he promised that he would build a school for her that would fix all of the complaints she had had over the years in the other language schools, and thus, the idea for FATE was born.

Three years later, their dreams were becoming a reality.  From what Caroline was telling me, things really did seem to be different.  The school would offer flexible scheduling to accommodate women, as well as providing a day car facility so they could bring their children to school with them.  They were also offering training programs with local businesses who wanted to hire Saudi women, but needed them to have more office based skills, like using computers, basic accounting, and secretarial skills.  It seemed like they were really trying to think ahead to all the pitfalls and head them off before they started.  It seemed like a project I could get behind.

After the first interview, I had a second interview with the owner of the company.  We spent an hour or so lamenting the state of affairs of women's education in Saudi, and trading ideas for solutions.  He asked a lot of really good difficult questions about the intersection of theory and practice, and what happens when reality challenges ideals.  It was a great interview because it felt like a real conversation instead of an interrogation.  At the end of it, he thanked me and told me that there was one final step.  They wanted me to take some aptitude and work preferences tests and speak with a workplace consultant from Holland.  He explained that this test would confirm if I was the kind of employee that would fit in well with the company, or not.  I was both impressed and surprised.  Most interviews for teaching positions in Saudi involve an inspection of your passport and a brief look at your resume and that is it. I was impressed that this company was being more careful and selective with who it hired, but I was also a little jaded now about the idea that a company could hire and fire using the "you are very good at your job and highly qualified, but you are just not a good fit" excuse. After all, what should matter most is performance in the classroom, and I think a better test would have been to give a sample lesson.  Not that getting along in the workplace isn't important, it's just that 90% of your time is in class, and the other 10% is planning and grading, so it doesn't leave a lot of room for interacting with other staff.  

A few days later, I took a series of on-line tests.  The first test required you to read a report and pick out the important details.  The second test involved reading charts and data.  The third and forth tests were pattern finding and problem solving tests.  These were actually kind of fun.  The next three tests were all Myers-Brigg style personality questions that asked you to choose words that described you or your work habits from a set list of adjectives.  I always hate theses since it often depends so much on the situation.  I always find myself wishing I could add explanations and qualifiers.  At the end of these tests, I had a final one hour skype interview with a Dutch woman from this workplace consulting firm.  Mostly we talked about what my test results meant... mainly I was extremely adaptable and independent, maybe even too independent at times.  She said she didn't see any red flags and would recommend that they make me an offer.  I was excited and thanked her.

Sure enough, on Friday night, the owner called me to arrange a visit to the campus and the housing on Saturday evening.  He said If I like what I saw then, he would give me a written offer at the end of the night.  

Saturday, they arrived about 15 minutes late, but he had called me to let me know he was running late beforehand (how unSaudi-like!).  His driver, himself and his wife, who was 8 months pregnant, were all in the van waiting for me and as we drove off toward the college, we talked about their children and the decisions that led them to want to open the college and what some of their plans were.  When we arrived at the building, the owner pointed out some changes that were being made at the request of the Mattawa (religious police) to accommodate women students.  The college was actually the top floor of a 3 story building.  The bottom floor was a furniture store, the middle floor was empty aside from one lawyers office, and the third floor was for the college.  They were in the process of building a privacy wall along the side walk that led to the back of the building where the women's only entrance was located.  Once inside the building, the elevator and stairs were completely separate from the rest of the building and only went to the third floor, but this wasn't enough for the Mattawa.  They wanted it so that no one could see the women even approaching the door.  

The wife and I rode the elevator up together, and then her husband followed on the next lift so we wouldn't be in an enclosed space together.  Not that we would have fit.  This woman was clearly very very pregnant.  Though she was smiling and talking, I could see that she was very tired.  I worried about here keeping up as we got the grand tour.  There was a lobby with two desk for "administration".  There was a computer lab that was clearly being wired for internet as we spoke.  There were three or four very small classroom that could hold no more than 20 chairs tops.  Some of the rooms had white boards and projectors, but others had only chairs.  The "kresh" or kindergarten area was full of bright colours and fun carpet.  There were tiny colourful tables and chairs and a whole cabinet of toys and other kid-supplies, including a pint sized restroom.  There was even a cafeteria with big glass windows looking out on a patio.  He explained that eventually this would be a garden area and there would be a door, but the main goal now was to get the classes ready.

I have to admit I found myself rushing the tour, just because I could see that the wife was really dragging.  There were some chairs in the lobby so we sat around and let her rest while discussing ministry requirements and when the college planned to officially open (end of October) and how they would structure the schedules (would depend on student availability) and how they were going to recruit the students and other teachers (don't worry about that).  I got the impression that they were only slightly more prepared than the other college had been to open.  Fortunately, since the scale of this opening was much smaller than the other college, the road bumps wouldn't be nearly as bad.

After the tour of the college, we headed to the diplomatic quarter.  He was especially proud of the accommodations they had secured.  The waiting list for a place in the "DQ" can be as long as three years.  He said, even though it is very expensive, they know the importance of home life for teacher's happiness, so they decided it was worth it.  The security is excellent, and it is a place where you can walk outside without your abaya.  There are also lots of activities that you can attend, a sports and recreation centre, two grocery stores, and even a little mall.  It was everything you could want, so that you would never even need to leave this little island of non-Saudiness.  

They showed me Caroline's apartment, which had 3 bedrooms around a shared kitchen and living room.  Each room had it's own bathroom, so that was nice.  It was smallish, but standard.  It seemed a little empty, but the essentials were all there, table chairs, couch, tv, refrigerator, and yes, washing machine!  Caroline wasn't what I expected.  She was much younger looking than I thought, and she was very jolly and friendly.  She had been much more business like during the interview.  We stayed about ten minutes and exchanged pleasantries, then headed out again,  I could see that the wife was grateful to have reached the end of the evening. 

When we pulled up to my place, he gave me the offer in a neat little presentation binder.  He told me he was really excited to offer me the position and that he hoped I would find the offer satisfactory and reminded me of the perks, living in the DQ, insurance, free local flights to Dubai or Bahrain every three months or so, end of year bonuses, etc...  All this mention of benefits was making me nervous, it made me feel like the actual salary might be pretty low.  He didn't help matters by explaining they arrived at the salary by looking at what competitors were paying and that the offer was not open to negotiation.   By this time it was taking all my concentration to pay attention to what he was saying and not look at the offer.

He told me to take it home, look it over and let him know.  I thanked him, said goodnight to his wife and practically ran inside so I could get to my room and look at the offer.  It was a little less than what the medical and dental college was offering... so now I had to make a decision.