Job Discussion Forums

AGATHA · Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 45 Location: DAMMAM

Where is this wondrous transformation in Jubail Industrial College?
The classrooms are just as overcrowded as they were last year,the network of informers among staff and students just as observant,the building is just as decrepit and the managers are just as mean.
I'm here because I was conned by their advert and conned by the recruiter.
However,apart from my trivial grouse,there is another more serious reason to stay away.The JIC is in the epicenter of pollution trails from a mass of smokestack industrial plants.There is a refinery waste pipe within 10 minutes walk of the classrooms which produces polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the form of dense black smoke 24 hours a day.These hydrocarbons are a powerful carcinogen.Every morning I can smell the acrid odor of hydrogen sulphides lying heavily in the atmosphere after being discharged overnight.Prolonged exposure to this family of pollutants will often rot the lungs and possibly destroy the central nervous system.
Last June I asked a colleague from a different department who has a chemistry Ph.D about the presence of toxic pollution in our classrooms.
He explained that if these levels of pollution were detected in a residential area of the US or the EU the population would be evacuated.
This colleague was one of the many who left last June but he left voluntarily.
Another colleague from the ELC told me that the smell similar to pear drops which we sometimes smell near the teachers'accommodation was a form of hydrogen sulphide.This colleague also left of his own accord last June.
As an additional bonus there is a sewage farm nearly opposite the JIC .
Two teachers from the JIC have developed cancer .Another teacher,a non smoker had an operation one morning(the director wanted him back in the classroom in the afternoon) and the doctors warned him about his lungs.This teacher often complained about the smell similar to burning rubber around his accommodation.
Anyway,maybe they will fire Western teachers again at random as they did last June.Nobody knows.They won't have to fire me.I am going.
I love my lungs,my nervous system,my lymphatic system and other parts of my body even if nobody else does.
Take care dear colleagues;risking cancer and a brain tumor for 11,075 SR per month is a bargain with the devil.

In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke,
In cataracts of fire,blood and gall,

Departing,departing,departing,

William Blake

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

In anyone else here getting bored with these constant repetitious posts on this topic?? They all appear to be written by one or two people...

How long before this one gets locked?

VS

Cleopatra · Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 4:11 pm Post subject:

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

AGATHA · Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 45 Location: DAMMAM

[quote="veiledsentiments"]In anyone else here getting bored with these constant repetitious posts on this topic??

Good health should never be a boring topic.

Henry_Cowell · Joined: 27 May 2005 Posts: 3352 Location: Berkeley

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Some of the popsters here sound like they had been sold into slavery. As far as I know EFL teacher/instructors/lecturers are free to leave.

If it really is so awful why not just go ?

Pikgitina · Joined: 09 Jan 2006 Posts: 420 Location: KSA

I agree that if it really is that bad you have to leave. I also feel that your post was very relevant, especially to people who are new to this board and haven't been following it for ages. You have every right to complain here on this anonymous site and warn people that your place of employment is not only one to steer clear of, but also a potential health hazard.

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

No idea who Agatha is. To the best of my knowledge there is nobody still there who is working for Al-Falak so the recruiter who conned him must have been me if he was there last year.

I agree that nobody there has reported any real improvement over last year (nor any real decline either for what that is worth), but the comments about pollution puzzle me. There was nowhere giving out black smoke twenty-four hours a day within ten minutes walk of the college; indeed the nearest factory is miles away. There was a particularly bad period in summer 1999 when a couple of factories were on shutdown and thus flamed the gas out but the pollution appeared to be limited to the lower beach area heading towards the desalination plant, and didn't appear to drift up towards the college. I may add I have never smelt a sewage plant in all my time at JIC (metaphorical ones excluded).

007

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

There are 6 threads near the top on Jubail... mostly the same 3 or 4 people repeating the same things and making accusations and insinuations against each other... and that is likely why they are locked.

Anyone who is interested need only do a search and there will be plenty of information to keep them reading for awhile.

VS

robertinarabia · Joined: 10 Nov 2006 Posts: 54

I know what's going on here boys.
The deluge of posts against Jubail Industrial Academy ( which are now getting zapped ) have been construed by the brothers Grimm as emanating from Jubail Industrial College- which may be true- but only in small part. I assure you that Jubail Industrial Academy is simply trying to score a below the belt counter strike against JIC by claiming somewhat farcically that it's the epicenter of pollution and as toxic as AREA 51. Pollution is an environmental problem, forget winddirection, it's in the air, it's going to be over Jubail Industrial Academy just as much as JIC. Agatha, you are JIA, pay your teachers and stop worrying about JIC and the EC. Cheap scare tactics against JIC. JIC is perhaps not the best employer but the Mecca of global pollution, no! By the way, in Abqaig I developed bronchitis and ashtma, but that was a 30 a day habit.
More seriously, Cleo is dead right, why are posts getting pulled all the time, and what are the criteria for pulling a post. There ought to be some accountability here.

robertinarabia · Joined: 10 Nov 2006 Posts: 54

Veiled Sentiments has got it right! This is part of the tedious battle between JIA and JIC. It's all just propoganda and counter propoganda. The banner " STAY AWAY FROM JIC " is a revenge strike for the barrage of negative publicity generated by JIA's own stupid actions- which have now included failing to pay teachers. They would be better coming here openly to discuss THAT rather than raving against JIC.

Cleopatra · Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 6:32 am Post subject:

robertinarabia · Joined: 10 Nov 2006 Posts: 54

It's becoming really one dimensional in the Saudi section and we, entombed as we are in Saudi Arabia, appreciate the right to express what we really think so long as it is broadly related to the profession or the circumstances in which teachers find themselves.
As for freedom entaling the right to discuss the bodies of local women, that's just sexual imperialism and it's disgusting. You guys dreaming of your next trip to Thailand while you are watching the Saudis plod dully through their books- have a heart. You know what, I have many faults, I am a patriot, I hate Al Qaeda, and I am no whining liberal, but I believe every life is sacred in god and everyone was born with an innate humanity and sense of dignity-even our enemies. The attitude of a lot of male TEFLER's in Saudi Arabia and evidently in other countries too is predatory and imperialist, a new and virulent form of imperialism, sexual imperialism perpetrated by the dregs of western society in poor countries. I have had to sit through lunch listening to the kind of guys Cleopatra is talking about, I smile a weak smile while my stomach is revolted. It's really one of the unsaid downsides of being in Saudi Arabia.