Been offered a job at Aramco in Dhahran.......

UmmRiyam - thanks for your response.

I have now had it confirmed that the annual rent is as low as I thought it may be (wow!) I think the subsidy was so generous I assumed it had to be wrong

Makes the overall package look much better, waiting to hear back on whether there is room for negotiation (in my last two job moves I did not negotiate and I subsequently found out that there was more budget as they were expecting me to negotiate - promised never to make that mistake again)

Wow teeboy - them's pretty good quals. The grading here is like Engineer III, II, then I, then Consultant / Specialist. I figure you'd be a GC16 at least. I'm guessing $US270/yr tax free. Your previous salary has a big role to play though, so likely you'll be on less.

In terms of the job itself...

ARAMCO will pay 2 to 3 times more than anywhere else on the planet. The benefits are hard to dispute. Free medical (not dental), reasonable flights and repatriation times, basically free housing…. You could easily survive on $US200/week But you don't get something for nothing right? For most people, the turn-off is the local culture, which I won't get into.
I can survive that. The problem for me is that the management, which like Saudi culture in general, is hierarchical, rigid, tribal and nepotistic. Arab people in general are fine. But asking ARAMCO for leave requires about 4 levels of approvals which clearly is a waste of everyone’s time. Getting training requires any number of hoops. I pay for business calls out of my own pocket, because the company is too cheap to provide the required Pin code. It all comes down to control and trust. Saudi managers want to control everything, lower level managers (usually fresh out of college) therefore have no initiative and/or backbone and nothing is challenged or fixed, even if the labyrinthine bureaucracy could facilitate it.

For example. As a bachelor, you will be offered 50 days a year holiday. Sounds great, except that this is including weekends. I kid you not. So rather than '10 weeks' you were thinking (ha, ha, ha, ha) it is actually 7. OK, if you're American, but for a European, (where 6 weeks, no BS is the norm), you'd feel a bit cheated. Some will tell you that if you plan your leave, you can get all the days. That's true, except management will force you in almost all cases to take your leave as a block (to avoid paying you for those pesky days off).

Also, you are promised good medical. The fact is, there is only 1 hospital and it is overloaded. While the standard is good, it will be a 2-6 month wait for any specialist. I usually wait till I return home..
If you are non-Saudi, promotion is not an option and training is a shoot. Maybe a conference. Very often – particular in the recruitment phase - you’ll be told one thing, and then experience another. I didn’t have these problems, but be prepared. Also, ask for the housing location to be put into the contract, or risk living in the desert…

So to summarise, I am only here for the money. That's it. Management could change the rules to make it a little more bearable, but they won't or can't.

There is a bit of truth in both of the two the recent posts. Vacation/training opportunities really depend on your management chain. There is no real consistent policy. Per our department policy, I am enled to go for training every year but that really doesn't happen. It has been every two years at best and, at the moment, all OOK training is on haitus. Vacation policy also varies widely and can be set even at the unit level. I am fortunate that I can take multiple vacations and spread them out. I also know people that are required to take their leave all at once. It just depends on your supervisor or GS and what he decides his policy will be. Get a new supervisor and the policy might change.

With regard to medical, while you can go to urgent care or the emergency room conveniently, seeing a specialist is quite hard and requires a referral. The 2 - 6 months is about right. I destroyed three ligaments in my knee and it took 3 months to get an MRI. Two more weeks to see a specialist and then 11 weeks for the followup. Training for doctors varies alot by where they studied. Many doctors are not trained to read MRIs. Mine wasn't. The radiologist makes all the reports and got mine wrong. One of the three ligaments he said I tore was the PCL. Later I took the MRI to the USA and the doctor in Houston saw my PCL was perfectly fine within about 2 seconds of looking at it. He found that I had torn the ACL instead. I brought his report and photos of the arthroscopy back to Dhahran and they refused to put it in my medical file.

Physical therapy was 15 minutes a week. I was in a wheel chair for a year. If I had been treated immediately in the USA, I likely would have been walking in a couple of weeks. I did eventually go to the USA and had therapy for 3 1/2 hours every day. When I first got here, the medical facilities were only for employees and immediate family and care was expeditious. About 7 or 8 years ago, the medical facilities were opened to extended local families and are now very much overloaded. If you can wait for medical until a vacation, for anything serious, that is the better plan. I also do not believe there is much accountability for malpractice anywhere in Kingdom. The clinic and hospital are basically like any government facility. I expect they are on par with the VA in the USA. Aramco recently contracted out the medical to Johns Hopkins but I have not seen any significant difference as of yet but remain hopeful.

With regard to dental, my daughter needed braces. We were given a 9 month wait for that appointment. That is an eternity for a kid with bad teeth. On advice from a friend, we made an appointment at a local clinic for the following day. We went in for a consult only and walked out 2 hours later with braces. It was a third the cost of Aramco dental clinic as well. We paid a 5,000 SAR flat fee and paid only 300 SAR per month. After the 5,000 was paid off, visits were free. At the time, Aramco braces were something like 17,000 SAR. There are some good medical facilities nearby so Aramco is not the only game in town. We went to Ram but I've heard Magrabi is also excellent. Aramco dental is expensive and appointments take time. They do provide emergency services.

Also be aware that the doctors report to Aramco. You do not enjoy the same confidentiality that you do in the USA. A friend twisted his ankle while out walking. He stepped in a hole that was covered by uncut grass. He went to the clinic to have it looked at and got written up for the injury. As his supervisor, I had to do a report on it for Loss Prevention. Later I was working in the garden at my house on the weekend and an angle grinder cut through my jeans and into my leg. I did what anyone would do. I went to the kitchen and covered the 6 inch wide cut with a paper towel and taped it in place with electrical tape to contain the bleeding and went back to my work because I did not have a 6" bandaid. About a week later, the infection was beginning to get out of control so I went to the clinic. Big mistake. I got treated okay but also got written up and it was reported to my management. Next time I will go to a clinic outside. We have had really good results at Saad hospital.

In short, there are many options for medical treatment here so just make an informed choice. There are some good doctors and some bad ones - just like anywhere.

A few years ago my wife fell and hurt her arm. After a few hours, the pain was still bad and it was a bit swollen so we went to the UC clinic and saw a GP. He ordered an x-ray and a while later he reviewed it with us and said the arm was not broken, only sprained, and sent her to the splint room. It was 3:30 PM and the splint room did not want to make the splint because they were about to close at 4:00 so they sent us to the emergency room instead. When we walked in, we explained what had happened and that she needed a splint. The ER nurse said she could not put on a splint because the arm was broken. We assured her the GP confirmed it was only sprained. The nurse asked an ER doctor to look at the x-ray, which he did, and he said it was clearly broken and my wife got a cast instead of a splint. The doctor said she was lucky she hadn’t gone to the splint room because the bone would not have healed correctly with a splint. One doctor was right. The other doctor was wrong. Don’t know which one.

teeboy12,

Have you heard back on the Grade Code question? I would say the GC 16 answer above is way off base. IT is not Engineering and Engineering Consultants (GC 16) are very rare. Those are typically very senior geophysicists, geoscientists, and petroleum engineers. Those people are already make $200k and up annually.

Remember that the median grade code is 12, expats and Saudis. That is the largest group and it is respectable. I know many GC 12s with 20 years experience. All with graduate degrees, which is not uncommon. If I had to guess, you'd be a 13. And salary is, as a rule, very close to what you're making today. The tax breaks, housing, benefits, etc. is the reason people come.

Also understand that there are really two les. A formal one that is generally ambiguous but is related to your visa. And the other is more job relevant, but not really related to grade code.

If you're offered a 13, you can try to negotiate for a 14. There is a bump in the size of house you're offered from 13 to 14. And if/when you're temporarily housed in a remote compound (Ras Tanura or Abqaiq), you'll be moved to Dhahran sooner. Grades 11-13 have about a on e year wait to get relocated. Grade 14s have about 4 months.