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Al Yamamah University Riyadh (SILC)
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yellow_trainers



Joined: 19 Mar 2015
Posts: 9

PostPosted: Mon Jun 15, 2015 10:17 am    Post subject: Al Yamamah University Riyadh (SILC) Reply with quote

Saudi Interlink or SILC as it is known, is housed at the Al Yamamah University in the north of Riyadh.

Good things first:
Salary: around 38k - 45k USD (depending on qualification, experience, etc.)
Pay check: Usually around the 25th of the month. You get paid before the month ends.
Housing: Spacious. Two locations. Brand new apartments in Yasmin Quarter, near work, apartments from the 1970s in the Diplomatic Quarter, 30 mins drive.
Airfare: organized and paid by employer.
Medical card: paid by employer.
Drive to work: shuttle bus every morning and afternoon.
Shopping trips: twice a week after work.
Teaching: four hours a day, five times a week. Total 20 hours. Plus an hour office time every day.
Arrival: get picked up at the airport, brought to a five star hotel for a night, given a 3k Riyal loan to spend, deducted in two or three instalments. The following day driven to accommodation and supermarket.
Laptop allowance: 2k Riyal for a period of four years to buy a new laptop.


Bad things:
The management have no clue about running a business.
Everything has to be reported to the management. Bureaucracy is huge!
Students spying on teachers and reporting everything to the management, some teachers spy on other teachers and report to the management. The management sends out people or like in the past, the assistant director went round the hallways and noted down all those teachers who arrived in their classrooms a minute or so late. Then those teachers received an official warning via email with everybody else CC'd in.
Even though you teach 4 hours a day, and you have to be available in your office for the students for an hour a day, you have to be at work from 8am to 3.40pm.
You have to have your cellphone on all the time, in case you need to cover for a colleague. They'll tell you very last minute.
Various emails are sent out every day. Tone is very harsh and things change often. Scheduled meetings either don't take place or their time and day changes.
There's a punching in and out machine like in factories.
Textbooks are not used. You are expected to create your own material.
There are two printers for 20 something people, but no paper in or next to it. You have to beg for it and you're given a little amount only.
You have to write mid-term (6 paras) and final reports (shorter) for each student and send them to your supervisor. If he doesn't like them, you'll have to re-write everything. And of course this is done via email with everybody CC'd in. The students don't read them at all.
Visa: IQAMA is promized, but not everybody gets it. If you do, you can bring up to three dependants.
Attire: Formal, suit, shirt, tie.
Your passport is taken away by the employer and you're given a photocopy of it and your visa. This means that you can't travel anywhere. Give them your IQAMA if you have one and keep your passport.
Holidays: almost none throughout the academic year. Only a few days at Hajj and a few days in March, spring holiday. Then 45 days in the summer.
When the students get a week off between terms, the teachers have to go to work every day and prepare for the next term.

Funny emails go round, like: the color of your tie is inappropriate, you're sitting on the wrong side on the bus, etc. Of course, all staff including the general director Ccd in.
The general director, a Tunisian woman who suddenly came to power, behaves like a dictator. Her nicks are 'pitbull' and 'bulldog'. And because she wants to appear nice and friendly and not harsh or bad, she commands her assistant to write and send out all those emails. Even the other people of the management Cc her in, no matter if she has to do or say something with and on the matter. She has to know. You are not allowed to fart without her consent and her knowing.

For those of you who haven't got any Gulf experience, you won't find the academic environment you're hoping for or been promized. You'll find a military camp with a modern slave flavor, in which you have no rights and have to keep your head down and do whatever you're told.

Most colleagues are either from the region (some have lived in countries like Canada or the US) and there are some hardcore converts.

If you happen to work on the mens side, beware of Gina!
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pooroldedgar



Joined: 07 Oct 2010
Posts: 181

PostPosted: Mon Jun 15, 2015 11:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Desk warming was the real deal breaker for me in my Oman job. Some colleagues didn't seem to think it was a big deal, but I found it not only disrespectful and a sign of management that cares more about their own unearned prestige than actually running a good school, but as a detriment to teaching. We got a week off in December but had to go straight on through until July after that. I think during May and June things really took a downturn for me that wouldn't have happened if I had just gotten a week off to myself somewhere along the way. But no. Just weeks of sitting at my desk, looking at a deadening screen.
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veiledsentiments



Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA

PostPosted: Mon Jun 15, 2015 2:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Desk warming is the standard in the Gulf. To avoid it, I suggest that you look at other parts of the world. This has been true of every university job that I had in Oman, the UAE, and Kuwait.

Perhaps jobs in the oil industry or military may be different, so that option might be open for males, but not females.

VS
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nickelgoat



Joined: 26 Jan 2006
Posts: 207
Location: Where in the world is nickelgoat?

PostPosted: Tue Jun 16, 2015 12:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

.....

Last edited by nickelgoat on Wed Feb 13, 2019 5:53 pm; edited 1 time in total
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yellow_trainers



Joined: 19 Mar 2015
Posts: 9

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 9:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

nickelgoat wrote:
The American woman at Interlink who is the country director is one of the most aggravating, rude women I have ever met. Very liberal, and will easily take a students' side without even a thought. The South African sycophant who works under her is no better - what a wussy! He's scared of her. She needs to be shipped back to Vermont where she comes from.


She's from Tunisia, but spent some time in the U.S. and her assistant is from Yemen.
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BajaLaJaula



Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Posts: 267

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 1:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Never met a Tunisian that I didn't like. Must have learned to be nasty from living in Vermont. They are known for being aggressive and hostile. Must be all the maple syrup.
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SaudiESL



Joined: 03 Mar 2015
Posts: 2

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 2:21 pm    Post subject: Collecting passport Reply with quote

Most of the Saudi sponsors collect your passport upon arrival. You should ALL consider getting a second US passport before departing to KSA. The second passport is a legal, US passport valid for 2 years. This way you will never be stranded without a passport!

These guys have helped some colleagues get theirs : http://www.travelvisapro.com/?apply_passport,do.choose,type.Second_passport
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nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 2:27 pm    Post subject: Re: Collecting passport Reply with quote

SaudiESL wrote:
Most of the Saudi sponsors collect your passport upon arrival. You should ALL consider getting a second US passport before departing to KSA. The second passport is a legal, US passport valid for 2 years. This way you will never be stranded without a passport!

"Do employers/sponsors still withhold passports?"
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=108129
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veiledsentiments



Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 3:00 pm    Post subject: Re: Collecting passport Reply with quote

SaudiESL wrote:
Most of the Saudi sponsors collect your passport upon arrival. You should ALL consider getting a second US passport before departing to KSA. The second passport is a legal, US passport valid for 2 years. This way you will never be stranded without a passport!

These guys have helped some colleagues get theirs : http://www.travelvisapro.com/?apply_passport,do.choose,type.Second_passport

I've known dozens (hundreds?) of teachers who have taught in Saudi and none of them had or used a second passport. You couldn't get out with it anyway. You need an exit visa... and you would be immediately flagged as not having a valid entry visa in the duplicate and not allowed to leave.

Post one? Are you working for these people? If it's all so legal and common, just apply to the US passport authorities. You don't need to pay someone to do it.

VS
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scot47



Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 3:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SaudiESL is mistaken. Possession of another passport will not allow you to leave. You need the passport you used to enter KSA and it has to have an exit visa in it.

Bum advice from soneone with zero experience
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nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 3:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SaudiESL:

By the way, that visa agent gives the only valid reasons for having a second passport: 1) You travel internationally often and have difficulty acquiring travel visa between your trips; or 2) you request a 2nd passport for safety reasons, i.e. to travel between Israel and anti Israel States. Needing to escape KSA isn't one of them. Besides, as the OP stated, if your employer insists on retaining your passport, give them your iqama (keep several color photocopies of it) in lieu of your passport.
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SaudiESL



Joined: 03 Mar 2015
Posts: 2

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 3:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Second passport is just a suggestion so you can have an alternate form of US ID if your passport is collected.
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nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 4:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SaudiESL wrote:
The Second passport is just a suggestion so you can have an alternate form of US ID if your passport is collected.

Yet it's cheaper to simply have color photocopies your main passport page.
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nickelgoat



Joined: 26 Jan 2006
Posts: 207
Location: Where in the world is nickelgoat?

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 9:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

.....

Last edited by nickelgoat on Wed Feb 13, 2019 5:59 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Captain Willard



Joined: 11 Sep 2010
Posts: 251

PostPosted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 3:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Only if one exits at a Saudi border crossing. If one were to accidentally wander across the border or maybe get blown off course at sea, the second passport would be quite useful, indeed, entering a neighboring country. Of course, the employer should not be holding the property of a sovereign nation in the first place...

scot47 wrote:
SaudiESL is mistaken. Possession of another passport will not allow you to leave. You need the passport you used to enter KSA and it has to have an exit visa in it.

Bum advice from soneone with zero experience
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