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.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Monday, December 15, 2014
My (fourth) First Day
I was so excited to start my new job that I left 30 minutes early for work. Unfortunately, the taxi driver I used went through the center of town instead of the ring road, so there was a lot of traffic and I didn't make it into the office until 9am, 30 minutes late. Turns out, this was no big deal since most of the office still hadn't arrived either.
I went to the women's section first to drop off my bag and found that they had already given me a laptop. May had said it might take a couple of days, so this was a good sign. I went to find Nick and see what he wanted me to do. We sat down and he described for me the projects that were coming up. He and May were both leaving next week for Christmas holidays, so I had a lot to catch up with quickly. We basically had 4 major projects to do in the next two or three months. The first was an annual report for a mining company. This was basically 75 pages of corporate speak and financial charts. Real exciting stuff. The second was more exciting, we were doing the PR for an upcoming global conference on something related to economics and technology. The acronym was GCF, but I never quiet caught what they stood for, and Nick had forgotten himself. We also had an issue of the Saudi Voyager to put out, and a report on Saudiazation strategies that MacDonald's was publishing. So, all very exciting.
For now, I was given the opening of the annual report to edit, and then after that, I was going to help Safia, our other English Department person write profiles of all the key note speakers for the GCF. So I went back to the women's office and opened up my new computer. It was really brand new, and it had Windows whatever installed, you know, the new one that is great if you have a tablet or a touch screen but completely useless and confusing if you don't. I spent about 10 minutes just trying to figure out how to open a word document. I've come to the conclusion that maybe it doesn't even have windows. I gave up and used Google docs instead.
I started in on the profiles, which basically involved internet stalking the different presenters to find out about their credentials and job history and maybe an interesting tidbit or two. This wasn't so hard with the foreign speakers, but the Saudi speakers were mostly in their late 60s and didn't have much of an internet presence. It was actually pretty interesting to learn about all the different speakers, but it was also kind of depressing. All these people have done so much with their lives and many of them at young ages. I was starting to wonder about what exactly I was doing with my life when Nick called me and told me to get ready, he was going to take me to a meeting with the mining company. I asked if I needed to bring anything, and he said no, so I grabbed just a pencil and some paper and went to meet him in the lobby.
We took a taxi to the Mining company office in Riyadh, and when we approached the security at the reception I started to get a little worried. I had been carrying my iqama with me in my abaya pocket, but this morning, I had put it in my bag because I thought I might be taking my abaya off in the women's office and I didn't want it to fall out when I pulled it over my head. I had forgotten that I did that, and didn't remember until they asked for my iqama at the security desk. I hadn't brought anything with me. It was really embarrassing. May, another co-worker who had arrived separately had to go upstairs and find the email where I had sent her the scans of my iqama, find a color printer, print them out and bring them to the security guard. Luckily he agreed to let me in.
The meeting was to show the right hand man of the President of the Communications Department the design and layout for this year's annual report. I was seeing if for the first time, too. The mining company had wanted to go "more modern" this year than last, and the design featured diagonal cropping of photos and some really bright childlike colors for the section divider. The right hand man wasn't so sure. There were certain company branding colors that were allowed, and if it wasn't those two colors (yellow and a dark greenish teal) then he wasn't sure we could use them. I suggested we still use multiple colors, but maybe choose less vibrant, more earthy tones to reflect the "mining" aspect. Everyone liked my idea and I felt pretty proud that I had managed to make a valuable contribution on my first day.
By the time we got back to the office, it was l late and I was exhausted. No more sitting around with nothing to do, I could tell this job was going to keep me busy and engaged. For the first time since making the decision to take the job, I was 100% sure I had done the right thing.
I went to the women's section first to drop off my bag and found that they had already given me a laptop. May had said it might take a couple of days, so this was a good sign. I went to find Nick and see what he wanted me to do. We sat down and he described for me the projects that were coming up. He and May were both leaving next week for Christmas holidays, so I had a lot to catch up with quickly. We basically had 4 major projects to do in the next two or three months. The first was an annual report for a mining company. This was basically 75 pages of corporate speak and financial charts. Real exciting stuff. The second was more exciting, we were doing the PR for an upcoming global conference on something related to economics and technology. The acronym was GCF, but I never quiet caught what they stood for, and Nick had forgotten himself. We also had an issue of the Saudi Voyager to put out, and a report on Saudiazation strategies that MacDonald's was publishing. So, all very exciting.
For now, I was given the opening of the annual report to edit, and then after that, I was going to help Safia, our other English Department person write profiles of all the key note speakers for the GCF. So I went back to the women's office and opened up my new computer. It was really brand new, and it had Windows whatever installed, you know, the new one that is great if you have a tablet or a touch screen but completely useless and confusing if you don't. I spent about 10 minutes just trying to figure out how to open a word document. I've come to the conclusion that maybe it doesn't even have windows. I gave up and used Google docs instead.
I started in on the profiles, which basically involved internet stalking the different presenters to find out about their credentials and job history and maybe an interesting tidbit or two. This wasn't so hard with the foreign speakers, but the Saudi speakers were mostly in their late 60s and didn't have much of an internet presence. It was actually pretty interesting to learn about all the different speakers, but it was also kind of depressing. All these people have done so much with their lives and many of them at young ages. I was starting to wonder about what exactly I was doing with my life when Nick called me and told me to get ready, he was going to take me to a meeting with the mining company. I asked if I needed to bring anything, and he said no, so I grabbed just a pencil and some paper and went to meet him in the lobby.
We took a taxi to the Mining company office in Riyadh, and when we approached the security at the reception I started to get a little worried. I had been carrying my iqama with me in my abaya pocket, but this morning, I had put it in my bag because I thought I might be taking my abaya off in the women's office and I didn't want it to fall out when I pulled it over my head. I had forgotten that I did that, and didn't remember until they asked for my iqama at the security desk. I hadn't brought anything with me. It was really embarrassing. May, another co-worker who had arrived separately had to go upstairs and find the email where I had sent her the scans of my iqama, find a color printer, print them out and bring them to the security guard. Luckily he agreed to let me in.
The meeting was to show the right hand man of the President of the Communications Department the design and layout for this year's annual report. I was seeing if for the first time, too. The mining company had wanted to go "more modern" this year than last, and the design featured diagonal cropping of photos and some really bright childlike colors for the section divider. The right hand man wasn't so sure. There were certain company branding colors that were allowed, and if it wasn't those two colors (yellow and a dark greenish teal) then he wasn't sure we could use them. I suggested we still use multiple colors, but maybe choose less vibrant, more earthy tones to reflect the "mining" aspect. Everyone liked my idea and I felt pretty proud that I had managed to make a valuable contribution on my first day.
By the time we got back to the office, it was l late and I was exhausted. No more sitting around with nothing to do, I could tell this job was going to keep me busy and engaged. For the first time since making the decision to take the job, I was 100% sure I had done the right thing.
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