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[huntjuliehunt]

ELS's parent company is Berlitz.

I want to start with the good things at ELS. They pay immediately upon a session's end. They do not hold back a month's salary. Those are huge pluses, and pretty rare at language institutes. The front desk staff are kind and good people. The manager made an effort to make the new teachers feel welcome by taking us out to lunch. When a teacher who had only been there for 9 months left, the manager again took us to dinner at a hotel to wish him farewell. The housing was in a prime location, although unfortunately for a private person, shared with a few other teachers. The bedrooms were nicely furnished, and in terrific condition. I have never had such nice housing provided by an institute before. They have a driver who picks you up and drops you off each and every day. The salary is nice enough that you can save money or pay off debt.

And here's where it all went wrong. I was afraid of signing a one year contract, since it states that if you do not fulfill it, you owe them all the remaining months of pay you would have made, airfare, and "hiring expenses." I asked if they offered a 6 month contract, with the possibility of extending it if I felt happy after that time. The manager told me that a 6 month contract was available to me, if I was willing to buy my own ticket. I asked him if he would reimburse me 50% upon arrival, and he agreed, and he did. He explained that I would be on a Business Visa. When I received my visa, it stated "Not Permitted To Work" and everything else was in Arabic. I had concerns about this, and the manager called me on the phone, explaining, "I just want you to relax. Everything is taken care of. We give the same visa to all the teachers here. Just try to relax."
I'm from the USA, and was harrassed by the flight counter staff in England, and by the passport check desk in England, over my reasons for going to Saudi Arabia. I told them that I was going for "Teacher Training," which is what the manager at ELS told me to tell anyone who asked, and spent several minutes while they called over a manager to grill me as well. Despite my red face and quivering body, they let me pass.
The first week or two, I had a meeting with the manager in his office. I said "I'm not legal to work here." He said, "Of course you are." I said "It says I'm not, right here on my passport." He told me, and I'm paraphrasing, "You don't understand how this country works. They have rules that they don't pay attention to. They say things that they don't mean," and I'm not paraphrasing the part I remember clearly, "The rules are flexible here. We've taken care of the visa for you." I said, okay... but do I need to leave the country to keep my visa valid? He said "No, no, your visa is good for 6 months." I said "You're sure I don't have to leave to keep it valid?" He said, "Sure, I'M SURE! You don't have to go ANYWHERE." He then recommended that I do take vacations, perhaps once a month, at the end of each session. He told me that he tells that to all of the teachers because he wants them to experience relaxation and freedom from the confinement in Riyadh. I said "You're 100 percent sure?" He said, "Please, try to relax. You can go, you can stay, it's up to you. You are good for 6 months."
I mentioned that the housing was excellent. I should also mention that the manager kept keys to each of the teachers' rooms in his office. The first month of work, he lent our keys to maintenance workers at the school, to go into our rooms and install televisions and dvd players. Later that night, our driver told me "We saw money in your room. I don't like that. That's not good." There was a supermarket across from our house, where one can make key copies in 1 minute at a very cheap price. Every week, we saw workers outside our house cleaning the pool, inside our house, vacuuming or fixing things... One day I opened my drawer and discovered $700 USD missing. This was within 3 days of having received our monthly pay. You would think I'd have learned from that, but it happened again, several weeks after that, again immediately following our payday. Another 700 USD missing. I'm a slow learner, but that was the last time I kept money anywhere in my room. I was so angry, I threatened to quit, in hopes that the manager would find the culprit or offer me some sort of compensation, since I felt that the school should take some responsibility for allowing workers with key access into teachers private rooms. The manager said, "I'm sorry you feel this way, but if you need to quit, I'll understand." I told him later that week that I would stay, but it was still unnerving.
Fast forward 4 months. The end of Ramadan is time for a 2-3 week vacation for the whole city. Our manager had already taken off for a month's stay in Malaysia. Other teachers were leaving the country, too. I purchased a $770 ticket to Paris and couldn't wait to get away and clear my mind. At the Riyadh airport, after waiting in line for 45 minutes, the passport check worker handed my visa back to me and said "No good."

"What? What no good? Good!"
"No, visa no good. You don't go to Paris."
"Visa good- visa good for 6 months!"
"Next."
A nasty non-Saudi worker (I believe he was with Emirates air) came over and said "You're going nowhere tonight. You can go to the government tomorrow." He then asked to look at my airplane ticket, and he took it out of my hands and away from me. He shouted "Cancel" to an Emirates worker.
"No! Don't cancel! Give it back to me! There's a mistake!"
No one explained anything to me; they took my ticket and walked away from me - and the airport was JAM PACKED with hundreds of people in my way. I found my way to the Emirates office and said "Someone needs to help me. What is going on?" The man inside the office said, "Your visa expired 2 weeks after arrival in Riyadh." I said "It says right here, it's good for 6 months!" He said, "Yes, it's good for 6 months as long as you leave every 2 weeks, because it's not a work visa and you're not allowed to work here. You have been illegal for 3 months."
As soon as I got home, I went to an internet cafe, angry and emotional, and researched the penalty for being illegal for 3 months. Saudi Arabia passed a law in April 2007 which states that those will illegal visit visas are granted an amnesty period of 2 months in which they can turn themselves into police, or be caught by police, and simply be deported at no cost. And those who overstay more than 2 months serve 6 months in Saudi prison and are then deported at no cost. Their sponsor serves 6 months in prison as well, and pay a substantial fine.
The next day, I phoned the school office, and they contacted my manager is Malaysia, who called me and said "Why didn't you tell (The name of a Saudi associated with ELS who has a well known family name) that you were going to the airport? Why didn't you tell him?" I said, "Look, (manager's name), I want to make something very clear. I was never told to tell ANYONE that I was going to the airport, and this is the first time I've even heard this person's name." He told me that the Saudi would pick up my passport that day and "fix it" and have it returned within 3 days. I said, "Good, and you can also pay for a ticket to Dubai since my vacation was ruined and they took my Paris ticket." He said, "Fine! Fine!"
The next day, the manager called and said "He couldn't fix your visa." I said, "Okay? Then what?" He said "You need a new visa. It can't be fixed." What this meant was that I could stay in Riyadh illegally and hope no one would come after me until my 6 month "contract" expired, or I could go back to the USA- because there was no way to get a new visa in Saudi Arabia having been illegal in Saudi Arabia for 3 months. It meant that, in addition to the possibility of 6 months in prison aforementioned. So that was my manager's answer and he finished the call by again mentioning that it was my fault, for not letting someone I didn't even know exist, know that I was going to the airport.
That night, I walked into the office with a list of requested compensation. It included the cost of the flight to Paris, the 2 months salaries that I had not worked yet, but would not be able to work, the cost to change my return flight ticket to an immediate date, and the cost for the taxi to and from the airport. The next morning, the accountant called and said "The manager said that you're getting...nothing." I said, "Excuse me? I'm getting something. Tell him that he needs to call me right now, or I will go to the US Embassy, or the police, or whoever I need to go to. And if they send me to prison, he's going to prison too."
The manager called me 40 minutes later. He began yelling, "You're threatening us! Go to the police! You think you're the only illegal one? We're all illegal! You want the office workers to go to prison? Is that what you want? I'm not listening! I'm not listening!" I put the phone down and walked away to breathe. I came back and he had not stopped yelling, "I'm not listening!" I said, "That's right... you're not listening," and hung up.
I went to the US Embassy right then. They heard my case and told me that I needed to wait 2 weeks in order to help me, because everything in the city, including the Embassy, was closing down because of the end of Ramadan. I said, "So, I have to wait here for 2 weeks without a vacation, thinking that I'm going to prison for 6 months and feeling extremely unsafe in that house?" The man smiled and said "Try not to worry."
When I got home, there was a letter taped to my door. It said "As of tomorrow at noon, you are evicted from this house." All of the teachers who had lived with me and knew me, except for one that had just been hired, were on vacation and had no idea what was happening.
I did not have money to stay in hotels, so my idea was to spend my days sleeping in the resting area of a gym that I had been a member of, and then walk the streets for several hours at night when it closed. In short, I was homeless. I had a Saudi friend at the time, who kept my luggage for me during that time, and said that he wished he could let me stay with him, but he lived with his sister and mother, and so it was forbidden. I petitioned to ELS in America, including the manager in San Diego who had interviewed me, and to the vice president in Princeton. They did not help me.
After that time, when the city re-opened, I went to the Embassy, and the man who had asked me to wait those 2 weeks, listened to my case again. Curiously, he wasn't as interested in it the second time around, and said "Well, we really can't help you. But your school has the obligation to give you an exit visa." So I returned to the school. The Saudi manager from the well known family met with me- the one who I had never heard of; the one who could and then couldn't fix my visa. He has a charm about him, and as angry and emotional as I was at that point, I could not dislike him. I wanted him to understand the truth of what had happened, and to make it right in some way. He would not offer me most of my compensation, but he did change my pre existing flight for an immediate one. When I saw the manager who I had known, and had last heard yelling at me on the phone, I somehow smiled at him. I don't know why I smiled. He gave me a nasty glare and quickly looked away as if I did not exist. I then saw some of my old students, who shook my hand, and hugged me, and I was able to leave with some of the bitterness lifted. But I was also told during that visit, that the manager had sent a lengthy email to all of the teachers and staff at the school, labeling me "An enemy of ELS".
The Saudi from the well known family took me to the airport. We bypassed the normal immigration desk, took an elevator, and he pretty much smuggled me straight through to the departure gate, facing a few awkward Arabic conversations between him and officials in the airport (I'm pretty sure something like "Come on, you know my family." "But Mr. Well Known Family Name, this is not legal." "Shall I call my father?" "Okay, okay... but we can't keep doing this for you." occurred.)
where someone knew him, and stamped my visa, and put me straight onto the plane.
I phoned the interviewer in San Diego, but he had been "instructed not to speak" to me. I phoned the vice president in Princeton, and we had a few conversations that ended horribly. He refused to help me. I told him that I was prepared to release the story in full to every teaching website I could find, and he said "I don't appreciate your threats. And posts on Dave's ESL Cafe have very little effect."
I phoned the president of ELS, who apologized for my experience and told me to "have a nice Thanksgiving."
Here I am, "safe" in America, and despite all of this, I do miss Saudis, and have great affection for them. Anyone have a job offer for me there?

[scot47]

I seem to rememeber a debate beteen Cleo and juliehunt about how long jh would last in Riyadh.

My feeling is that some people should not come to KSA.

[huntjuliehunt]

I believe I was told that I am not cut out for the Middle East, but I had already enjoyed time teaching in the UAE. The experience above is not about someone not being cut out for Saudi Arabia, as I seemed to enjoy it more than some of the other teachers there, and loved many of my students, was loved by many of them, and still have friends there. The above post is about going into a country without the intelligence to concretely understand the Arabic on a visa, and trusting a manager who cannot be trusted to explain the Arabic to you. Having money stolen from your room also has nothing to do with not being cut out for a country. Did you even read the post?