Again I shrug...

Before you ask, no, I won’t continue with the ‘dear-diary’ format of day-to-day recording. That would be boring. But for now, it is a little useful.

Day 1: I stumble out of bed the first day in-country at the crack of noon-30. I was obviously knackered. Figured I check out my email and find that I’ve got an email from the HR guy (who I's going on vacation for the rest of the year tomorrow BTW) that he has been trying to call me. Hmmm, phone in the apartment isn’t working. Ominous start to the day. At this point I don’t even remember all that went on the first day – it’s a fog.

Today is the start of the orientations of the departments on the compound. So far so good. Unfortunately, about half the ones I need to complete are with people on break until next year. That is about par for the course given my experience thus far. We’ll adapt.

I get the security overview, fairly stock for an ex-pat but there are some unique requirements due to the nature of this business. For instance, if I want to go on a trip, which I obviously will if you have read my other blog, I have to let them know where, when, how long, etc. Now a lot of this is directly for my safety and I get that, local trips aren’t a problem, but it has not been my MO in the past. I’m more of an impulse traveler.

The vehicle overview is really interesting, not only do I get a vehicle (more on that later) but the company pays for the gas as long as I get a receipt and the mileage. (Why is it still called ‘mileage’ when the units are kilometers and liters instead of miles and gallons?) The motor pool manager is a hoot, we will get along just fine. He does point out that there are some serious consequences to certain infractions on the highway and there are a LOT of cameras for stop lights, speeding, not getting into the correct lane before turning, etc. This has a lot to do with the improvement in traffic I saw earlier. He points out that all the company vehicles have GPS to help find us if there is a problem, break down, etc. (Likely also in the event that one of the vehicles is cited in an accident, etc. they can prove if the car was even in the area. Company vehicles are a common scapegoat in an accident even if it wasn’t that driver’s fault.)

I did notice that it seems some people here have F150 4x4s so I ask my boss o/b (on base/compound) if I can get that instead of a car, he says he’ll see what he can do. So, we walk over to the motor pool office and have a chat with this guy, after a little more back and forth he says he’ll see what he can do, my boss says to us that I should check back every week. I like the way these people here get along. (I spoke with my boss the next day and he told me that the motor pool manager came to him the next day and asked if I would really come in every week, worried like. Haha. Those who know me probably can figure out how I’ll play that.)

The HR guy runs me by the dispensary to pick up the sample bottles for my series of tests to get my Iqama, one for spit, one for pee, and a third for poop – again. After that long trip getting here I have my doubts if they will get the last one in a timely manner if you know what I mean. No pressure!

On to IT for their orientation, this will put the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional! The manager is a really nice guy but he is shocked at the fact that I don’t have any ‘assets’ with me – phone, computer security fob, laptop. Apparently he has been trying since July to make sure that everything is handed out in the U.S., some things must be difficult to get in KSA and they have to find them in Dubai. That’s not the worst though. The good news is that he sets me up with a phone; the bad news is that it is a dumb Nokia from the last millennia. At least it is connection w/in the country. The really bad news? Zero access to my account (w/o a fob or key card) so no laptop. I am truly stuck. Looks like I will be visiting IT on a daily basis for the foreseeable future.

I get to meet the guy who handles paperwork like visas, etc. Nice guy, he tells me that the motor pool guy can be problematic if you take all his advice (did I mention that the guy can’t always keep a straight face when he’s telling you how to act – my kind of people.)

There is a restaurant by the pool and a small convenience store next to that so I’m OK for now. The building and grounds are well kept and the building construction is orders of magnitude better than the accommodations when I was in Jizan. And the weather is beautiful. 

View to the west.

View to the east.

Day 2: Show up at 7:00 a.m. raring to go – nobody is in the office except for Sayeed the office guy. My fault, I didn’t ask what time to show up. No worries, I get some coffee and look at all the pretty pictures on the walls and catch the typos on the company channel showing on the monitor. About 7:30 my HR guy shows up and we head to the dispensary for more lab tests and x-rays that I’m sure weren’t done right in the U.S. or they wouldn’t have to re-do them here. So a driver takes the nurse and me to a local lab/doctor’s office building just down the road a ways. As I fully expected I wasn’t able to give a s**t so we still need that sample. So, I give it the old college try after the x-rays and the rest, as they say, is history. Now they can submit for my Iqama (the official document that lets me stay & work in KSA.)

Not much else for today and since it is Thursday (TAIT) the weekend starts tomorrow. Onward to Panda!

...then it most certainly will.

"Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." ~ O. Hardy

The bright spot about mucking about in Boston is that with all my seat-of-the-pants navigating I did end up getting to the airport without paying a toll, a win in my book. Got the rental returned, they sure charge a lot for dropping a car off at a different location even if Manchester was glad to be sending a car back to Boston. You think they'd pay me.

I thought I'd just drop my luggage off at the ticket counter, go through security and chill with all the shops, restaurants, etc. on the other side. I was sadly mistaken. Emirates ticket counter is not open (until 4 hours before the flight and I arrived 6 hours early.) Luckily there is a restaurant this side of security which I couldn't have gotten through in any case since I didn't have a boarding pass. They have beer. ("In Saudi there is no beer, that's why we drink it here.") Since I really didn't have any breakfast and nothing for lunch and darn little for dinner the night before, it seemed an early dinner wouldn't be bad. Unfortunately, they did not have any pork on the menu. I'd been bulking up on that for the same reason as above. And that friends is why I got the BLT at Tony's I-75 Diner the previous weekend. (Those who don't know about Tony's won't know that their BLT consists of 1 lb of bacon.) So, I had the fish and chips with clam chowder. Wasn't bad but wasn't all that great either. The beer was good.

Then to go sit on the floor (since there weren't enough seats) and wait. On the plus side, this lady had a dog that she let me pat - it probably smelled our dogs on me so we hit it off.

Finally, the ticket gates open. The mad rush is on (if you have ever seen some people from some certain regions of the world and how they act around modes of travel then you'd understand - think of any show you have seen of train stations in India.) One guy was trying to get a 65" TV on board, they must be really cheap here in the U.S.

The worst thing, and at the same time the best thing, was that Emirates only allows one carry on for coach class. I appreciated that since I have seen flights where some people really push the limit of how many bags, etc. they try to pack in the overhead or under their seats. The bad thing for me was I had a backpack with my laptop and another one with a bunch of other stuff. If you'll remember, I thought my suitcases were a little empty, turns out there was enough room for one of the packs. One was 21 kg and the other one was actually over the 23 kg limit but the woman sort of looked aside and said it was OK. Whew!

Next stop the gate. I availed myself of another beer since it was calling my name. Thought I was going to end up with a middle seat but got a window. Not always the best choice for a 12-hour flight, I prefer the aisle seat just like the guys in Sneak Previews. They served a semi okay meal a couple hours in - with alcoholic beverages, w00t! Watched a movie that I hadn't seen, and did end up sleeping a little since I had gotten very little sleep the night before.

The flight was rough with lots of times with turbulence. I wake up in time for the breakfast and another movie I hadn't seen before. One thing I will say in Emirates favor is they have the cleanest potties of any of the Middle East airlines I have flown on.

Unfortunately, we land late, likely as a result of trying to avoid some of the many storms across the Atlantic. I've never been to Dubai airport before and the signage left something to be desired. There were quite a number of very helpful staff along the way though. Since the last in/first out leg of flight are required to be on Saudi Airlines I had to go down two floors, take a train to the transfer/baggage terminal and then take a bus to the connections terminal. At the bus stop a helpful young lady helping direct travelers observed that I would not make my next flight since check-in had closed and there was no way I could get a boarding pass and on the 9 p.m. flight. Now would be the time to panic were it not for my keen sense of acting like a duck.

Luckily, I had already known my cell phone could make wifi calls and I set that up. First call was to the travel booking company - Abby understood the urgency if I was to make the 11 p.m. flight but since the tickets were not supposed to be modified, she had to jump through some hoops and get approval to make the adjustments necessary. I just have to wait for her call back, clock is ticking. 

I send a flurry of texts, emails and phone calls to my main HR contact, my boss, and the KSA HR contact (since he had set up the person to pick me up at the Jeddah airport.) Also had to let my wife know my status. This is all before getting on the bus to the connections terminal. When I get there it is sit-and-wait since while I was in the system for the next flight it wasn't' quite set and we had to wait for the travel agent to get it squared away. The clock is ticking ever closer to the eleven o'clock hour. I just get a call from Abby in Georgia (state, not country) telling me the flight was booked when the ticket agent waived me up to the counter. Finally, had my boarding pass and was assured that my luggage would be on the flight. One more fun trip through security and head for the gate. I am happy my seat is on the inside of the plane at least. It's a three-hour flight from Dubai to Jeddah, one more movie? The potty on this flight however was somewhat less than sterile if you know what I mean. However, landings equaled take-offs and we were on the usual long drive to the gate.

Getting off the plane, the first thing I notice is that the weather is surprisingly cool. It's a whole lot different from the Michigan that I left. Now the long wait getting through immigration. I get into line and I didn't even have time to tap out a text when a gentleman, accompanied by one of the KSA security men, comes up to me and says to follow him (ahead of everyone else in line) and the soldier walks me right up to the desk. The woman does all the necessary scanning of finger prints, photo (I bet I looked really handsome after all that travel) and it was on to baggage claim.

Bad part here was that my luggage must have been the first ones loaded on to the plane because they were quite literally the last ones on to the conveyor. My drive whisks me and my luggage out to a Ford Tahoe and we are off to the compound. It is almost 3 a.m. local time - I have been up for over 25 hours. 

The drive and driver are both very nice. The traffic patterns have changed significantly since KSA has expanded its use of cameras for enforcement (speeding, running stop lights, not switching lanes in time to turn, etc.) and it really shows compared to what I remember from 7 +/- years ago. We drive in through the security at the compound and while I won't describe it (it wouldn't be appropriate to discuss) suffice to say it is very good security. The driver got me to my apartment at the compound and with that I will end this chapter.

If anything can go wrong...

In the first blog post one might draw the conclusion that, with all the things that seemed to 'go wrong', someone or some thing didn't want me to get this job. Well I'm here to say that the little 'signs' didn't let up.

First thing that happened is I got a travel code from someone I had not been in contact with before. Now I knew that I needed to get a one way flight to attend orientation on Monday for a flight out on Monday night. However, the code was for a round-trip and the travel agency couldn't change that. A few phone calls & emails latter we got that straightened out - and they also set up the onward travel to KSA.

Next thing was to send off my passport to get the KSA travel visa. The UPS drop box is just outside the chiropractor office so I killed two birds with one stone as it were. I did notice that there was a dearth of supplies in the box to send things with such as those plastic stick on holders for the label I had printed out and I used the last one. When I got back home I called the UPS phone number and after getting through their horrible help line menu I spoke with a nice person who promised to pass on the info. To their credit, I got a call from the woman in Lansing who was a supervisor for the driver who covered that area and she assured me that the box would be restocked the next day and when I went back a couple days later, sure enough, there was a complete stock of envelopes and everything.

Tracking the package, it was delivered on time. All is well with the world. Late the next day I got an email that UPS was going to deliver it back to me on Thursday. Thursday comes and goes, tracking isn't much help. I forward an email to my contact at work and we decide that we'd wait until Friday. Of course it does NOT show up. Now full scale panic sets in once more. Tracking says the thing hasn't left NJ. Almost an hour and a half on the phone and no good news. I'm talking with the supervisor and she says that NJ doesn't answer her calls (I asked her where she was and admitted that my guess of the Philippines was correct). I know that if I don't have the passport with the KSA visa I am not going to be allowed on the airplane. My HR contact has also spent quite a bit of time on the phone to UPS and didn't get any further (I had emailed an update to all interested parties). Finally, at about 11 p.m., I get a notice that the package is somewhere in KY. Long story short, I did receive it Saturday morning at about 10:30. With itinerary in hand, I'm ready to head out on Sunday.

Speaking of omens, I took the puppers to the bark park on Friday (once I knew that I was not getting any package). They were extremely excited and enjoyed running around even if there were no other dogs, there were plenty of 'social posts' to check and re-mark upon. When I drove into the dooryard there was a hawk right near our door and it flew up on to the railing. Unfortunately the hawk flew off before I could get a picture. Don't know if that was a good sign or a bad one. Let's hope it is a good omen.

Saturday I print out my boarding passes and notice that I don't have TSA Pre-check listed for some reason. I have had this since sometime in 2012 and I signed up for a 'life-time' traveler designation since I was over a certain age. Still haven't figured out what happened, it has always been automatic.

I'm all packed Saturday evening but I notice I don't seem to have as full suitcases as I did the last time I packed to go away for a year. Sunday morning I nick myself while shaving - I never do that. Hmmm.

OK, get on the plane fine after the struggle through security. (Why don't I 'feel' safer?) Flights are on time and except for the total lack of seat comfort I land in NH. I thought I'd drive down to MA, get some dinner and a beer or two. No such luck. I didn't make it in to the hotel until about 10:30 p.m. All restaurants close (there is only the one) at 11 so no seating, McDonalds is dark, finally found a Wendy's with just the drive through open. Stopped in at the nearby gas station to pick up a beer and was informed that they can't sell after 8:00 p.m. on a Sunday. Not an auspicious evening.

OK, Monday morning, bright and early, get to Raytheon - can't find the door I'm supposed to enter. Even the woman at the reception desk didn't know where I was supposed to get in. Again with the hasty phone calls, finally in the building just about 10 til 8 - with no breakfast and no coffee! Things are not going well for me. Made it through all the presentations, got my badge, talk a little more with my contacts about what's next - especially since medical is different for deployed workers. I'm feeling like things are going to be OK. So, off I drive to Boston. Thought I'd get a little time to look around before my 10 p.m. flight. That was kind of a mistake. As per the norm, traffic was very bad in the city and there was no place to park - not that I was looking for anything special, just wanted to stretch my legs. OK, head to Logan.

To be continued...

Finally

Quick update then more tomorrow or the next day. There is quite the tale to relate.

Got in to the apartment at ~3 a.m. local time, long story.

IMHO there is a special place in Heck for people who design airplane seats. I think they should each be required to only sit in the equivalent of the smallest seat they have ever designed (and make it the most uncomfortable one as well) any time and any place they need/want to sit be it watching TV, working or even driving in their own car. I think my arse is broke.

the road to here

A long time ago in a country far, far away...
(nod to Star Wars)

"... now go away or I will taunt you a second time!"
(nod to Monty Python)

(Some of you may be familiar with my previous blog, if you aren't, no biggie.)

Back in mid June this year I responded to a job post for Raytheon in Jeddah KSA. Just before Independence Day I received a notice that they would like to interview me the following week. Interview seemed to go well enough. I got an email within a half hour or so asking me for some paperwork, resume in a certain format, diploma, etc. Curiosity piqued, I called to ask what all this request for detail so soon was about. To my surprise, I was told that with just that one phone interview they had decided that I was the best candidate for the job. (I trust they had screened other qualified individuals prior to this and I was that last applicant, not that I was the only one who had applied at all.) 

I forwarded my documents and the ball, so to speak, was rolling, or so I thought. 

First feedback - the customer in-country didn't like my reformatted resume for some reason. So I sent a nice message to the hiring manager thanking them for the opportunity and regret that it looked like I would not be joining them. That seemed to get things rolling again. (Gee, maybe they really do want me and I'm the best candidate. "And darn it, people like me.")

Days pass, weeks pass, and I finally hear back that the General has approved my resume. (He was on vacation.) Forward motion again, or so I thought.

After getting a verbal confirmation of the salary, etc. I heard nothing but crickets for a while. Then I was told that the job title and description were wrong and it had to be re-posted. (Insert panic face here: 😱) This was via a cryptic (to me) voicemail. Fortunately, the next day I spoke with the ever-pleasant talent acquisition person who explained that they would list the 'new' position for five calendar days and move all my information over to that so I would not have to do anything else.

Then November 1st I received five emails - official offer and a slew of others since of course I submitted my acceptance immediately. So, background check form, drug screen form (pee-in-a-cup), over-night to me a poop-in-a-box kit for a Monday morning physical. Of course that had to be on Veteran's Day and we were in the midst of a winter storm that dropped about 4" here (and about 11" just 30 minutes south of us.) Oh joy! Then there was the 10 day wait for the poop test results to come back. So I found out on the 22nd that I was apparently healthy enough for KSA. A little more sit-and-wait time.... 

Scheduled for a Skype interview with the 'SAR' December 3rd - the last hurtle. This is supposed to be a pro-forma step but still an important one.

Then on Sunday, December 8th, I fly to Raytheon HQ in Massachusetts for a one day orientation. From there it is straight on to Jeddah. I hope I haven't forgotten anything important.

And so it begins again...

OK, so the 12/3 Skype interview didn't happen... It was supposed to be rescheduled for the 5th, same leaving date of 12/8. Aaaaand, that didn't happen. Skype interview with the SAR (resident Saudi in MA) set up for Monday, December 9th at 11:00 a.m. with a test call at 10:45 a.m. 

10:45 comes and goes, I'm panicking! I know my Skype (and associated email) work just fine but no call. With a few hasty texts, emails, and phone calls the interview is rescheduled for 1:00 p.m. Finally I got a connect request through Skype (which is the precursor to being able to chat on that software.) At the appropriate time they call and I'm able to video chat with the SAR. The actual interview probably took all of 5 minutes and I get the thumbs-up. Obviously I was expecting a much more intense interview - not that I would not have been able to hold up my end but the two of us seemed to hit it off just fine.

Now the deluge of paperwork has started in earnest. Thus it is official. I will probably add another post before I leave.