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now in ksa
Joined: 20 Mar 2012
Posts: 35
Location: KSA
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 Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 6:48 pm Post subject: TQ Project Al Khafji |
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| Anyone taken a job here or offer any advice about TQ please? Been offered a job and it looks very positive. Spent a year in Saudi so not going in blind. |
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:34 am Post subject: |
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| I know nothing about TQ and understand this is a new project. Is TQ the employer? |
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now in ksa
Joined: 20 Mar 2012
Posts: 35
Location: KSA
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world
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| Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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Uh, I don't think you mean TQ has a college. Anyway, who's the employer? TQ? |
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now in ksa
Joined: 20 Mar 2012
Posts: 35
Location: KSA
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| Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 10:18 am Post subject: |
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| TQ are my employers the college is SPSS I beleive but TQ are running it, they have one in Dammam. I met the Head from Dammam he seems like a really nice guy and it all sounds pretty good. Its a start up and I just wondered if anyone on here worked or knew someone in the Dammam school or was starting here. Ive had a year in Jizan so I have a clue about life etc. Fingers crossed. |
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gelynch52ph
Joined: 15 Feb 2011
Posts: 132
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:46 am Post subject: TQ is a British training company |
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Here is what I found.
TQ - A Pearson company
T +44 (0) 1509 678 400
[email protected]
TQ Education and Training
I lived in Khafji for about 5 months (working for IH at KJO) and it was my first experience in KSA. The area is really hot and there is little to do. Even though I've said there is little to do, if a person likes to fish there is a fishing club that is quite active so a man going there should take his heavy gear and somehow meet some fishermen.
Now that I've been in other parts of the country I have learned that Khafji is not the norm. Few women there cover entirely as they do in Riyadh or the Jizan/Najran/Khamis Mushait/Abha areas. If a person is there on a business or government visa he will not be able to rent a car even though it is allowed by Saudi law. They wanted: Iqama, Saudi DL (not International), letter of permission from the employer. In Jeddah and Khamis Mushait I needed any valid DL and money to rent a car. No Iqama, no Saudi license (Mine is Philippine), no letter, just passport and cash (which was usually paid upon returning the car). |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:12 am Post subject: |
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| Khafji at one time had the reputation within KSA of being the End of the Known World. I have been beyond Khafji - in Hafr Al Batin. Even further is Arar ! |
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Middle East Beast
Joined: 05 Mar 2008
Posts: 836
Location: Up a tree
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| Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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Don't know about the TQ job, but I was in Khafji in '03. It was like an old west town you'd see in an American western movie minus the saloon and horses. There were still bombed buildings from the 1st gulf war.
Granted, I was there in '03 so maybe it's improved. 
To say it's isolated is a gross understatement. I'm sure that hasn't changed. Internet service was iffy. I resorted to visiting an Internet "cafe" that consisted of about 15 stations, only 2-3 with operational computers and the rest in pieces. About a 2-inch layer of dust covered the coffee cup display. The food choices--slim pickins. Entertainment--the worst KSA has to offer  . Medical care--there was a small modern hospital there but we weren't allowed access.
If you're going there I hope you plan to write a novel or something 'cause it's bad there (or at least it was).
If TQ are the same people at TQLS I'd have to say that they are very fair to employees and you would be treated like a human being.
MEB  |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 5:23 pm Post subject: |
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Beast!! Where have you been? It has been months... are you on parole?
VS |
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wantok
Joined: 05 Jul 2012
Posts: 168
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Colonel Teacake
Joined: 05 Apr 2009
Posts: 5
Location: UK
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| Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 10:30 am Post subject: TQ/SPSP |
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| See my more recent post ('SPSP Dammam') |
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Middle East Beast
Joined: 05 Mar 2008
Posts: 836
Location: Up a tree
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| Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:30 am Post subject: |
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| veiledsentiments wrote: |
Beast!! Where have you been? It has been months... are you on parole?
VS |
Hi there VS! Sounds like you missed me!  How YOU doin'?
I've been messin' around. I went to Kuwait for awhile, but I swear the students there are completely useless. I was working at an oil company teaching new "conditional" employees. I swear they were the worst--
Late? Oh, try up to 30 minutes (for a 45-min class). And teachers weren't allowed to mark them late. If you tried (as I did) the students would raise hell with you on the spot and later with the oil company. I even had two students walk out of class because I marked them late.
Study? Fa-get-a-bout it!
They'd sit in class and play games or surf the Net on their phones. They'd even leave in the midst of class to answer their damn phones! Or they'd sleep, talk incessantly and loudly in Arabic...well, you get the picture.
They were worse than any I ever had in KSA.
I got the hell out of there.
I should probably say something on-subject.
Al-Khafji sucks.
As I stated above, if TQ=TQLS you should be OK as far as the employer goes.
Oh, Scot47, I passed through Hafr Al-Batin (aka Hafr Al-Nothin') a few times around the turn of the century while working at KKMC. It was indeed bad, but for me Kafji was worse 'cause I had to live there.
MEB |
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gelynch52ph
Joined: 15 Feb 2011
Posts: 132
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| Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:59 am Post subject: Khafji |
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Your experience with students in Khafji sounds just like the one I had with Saudi and Kuwaiti "students" at KJO. The Kuwaitis would arrive late and claim they were held up at the border. All the students would spend half the day trying to negotiate an early release time, time for prayer, time to get ready for prayer or extra lunch etc., etc., etc. and when I did not bend to their every whim, bitched to the KJO management that I did not respect their religion by not altering the times to suit them.
The town itself was just hot, dusty and boring. |
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scot47
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343
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| Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 9:58 am Post subject: |
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| Hafr Al Batin translates as THE HOLLOW OF DESOLATION ! |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Middle East Beast wrote: |
| veiledsentiments wrote: |
Beast!! Where have you been? It has been months... are you on parole?
VS |
Hi there VS! Sounds like you missed me! How YOU doin'?
I've been messin' around. I went to Kuwait for awhile, but I swear the students there are completely useless. I was working at an oil company teaching new "conditional" employees. I swear they were the worst-- |
It was awfully quiet around here... as it is every summer.
I'm doing fine... about to hit the road for a month of checking out the Fall Foliage. Now there is an activity that is hard to explain to one's students in the Gulf.
VS
(for any newbies... there are places in Kuwait where the students are completely different than those described here. They are found at some of the university level positions.) |
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