New hire to Ras Tanura. Travel home to New York Question.

An expensive proposition indeed! And probably impractical. First, you'll need supervisory permission to be taking a week and a half off every month and a half. Also, depending on your unit and how many employees have seniority over you, new employees are not usually afforded flexibility like this your first year or so. If you have unique circumstances that make this type of travel very important (like health concerns of parents, etc.) you should probably articulate that to your supervisor upon your arrival, and note that he likley will not be pleased to hear of plans like this. If he's REALLY flexible and approves your request, realize that it takes 22-36 hours to get there, combined with the fact that you'll be jet lagged for 2-4 days and exhausted from the trip. Then another 22-36 hours to get back and go right back to work, again jet-lagged.

I think you'll also be required to take one longer repatriation leave per year consisting of at least 14 consecutive L-days which will cut into your available vacation time for monthly trips home. It's easy to think travel like this is manageable because you're not living it yet, but once you do this a couple of times, I suspect your view on this will change. This type of travel is literally exhausting. You might consider having some of your family come visit you over here once a year. The trip over here can be quite an adventure for family and they typically enjoy it if they're the travelling types.

Actually Saudi Airlines has a direct flight from Riyadh to JFK, so the traveling wouldn't be so bad alone (ie without children!)....but, I do think it might be difficult for your supervisor to give you vacation so often. Also, I don't think jet lag would be so bad traveling alone vs. with children. And, we have almost no jet lag when we go to USA...it's coming back here that's more difficult, especially depending on the flight times. We found it easier when we arrive during the day to Saudi vs. arriving at night to Saudi.

Thank you all so much for the information you have provided. Indeed, one of the conversations held during my interview process with was the possibility of taking 5 days off so that I could get a full week home. Under this premise, they did not seem to think it was an issue, but I guess we'll have to wait and see for sure. The issue of having to take a set period of days off in a row, as a mandatory item is new, and something I will have to broach with my managers. As for the jet lag issue, honestly, I've spent much of the past 10 years of my life on the road, so I'm generally used to the flight times required. That, as one person mentioned would be the least of my concerns. But maintaining some semblance of a relationship with the home-front, even if it's an every third month thing is a must for me, so I would need to clarify this asap. The flights themselves are available and, while pricey, still worth it to me. I guess time will tell.

If you look at your pay statement and look at the number of hours you are paid, you can calculate that you are paid for every day of the month including weekends. This is why you don't earn weekends. They have already been paid for. The company expects you to be available to work at any given moment. In my experience, regardless of what the manager says, the GS or supervisor can override that with regard to vacation policy. Obviously you could complain to the manager but probably not the wisest choice. In simpler words, you can Facetime your family any time you want. If you did travel back to NY every six weeks, the jet lag would ruin you.

Hi teeboy12,
Your first weekend off (I.e Friday and Saay) will be classed as days off. Your subsequent weekends for the duration of your vacation will be classed as "L" days (leave days) and will be deducted from your annual allowance. As previously mentioned if you do not work during the week you do not "earn" the weekend off.

Teeboy, you can't have 3 weeks holiday without using some leave for Fridays/Saays.

If you holiday SMTSSMTSSMTWT you need to ask for 21 days (all the days there, plus the following FS)

If you holiday for just 1 day less, so MTSSMTSSMTWT, you need to ask for 18 days, as the first FS isn't required as leave due to working the Sunday.

Hi Cob,
From my limited experience it's not even the division you are in, it can come down to the individual supervisor/foreman you have.
As for your travel you could leave on the Thursday straight after work and return the following Saay ready to return to work on the Sunday. This would mean you would be on days off for the first Friday and Saay ( you had worked the previous week so had earned these days off), you would then be on leave (L days) for Sunday/Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/Saay (a total of 7 days leave) before attending work on the Sunday. As per my previous post I assume you will receive 2 interim and 1 full repat leaves for bachelor status. To trigger the payments for these you must take at least 10 L days for each. That will take 30 of you leave days. Again I assume you will get 50 L days per annum (if you are at least GC11) so that will only leave you 20 L days for the extra trips you are planning. As you can see from the maths, after your interims and repat you will not have enough leave left to do what you were considering in your initial post. Hope this helps