Recently moved here and everything said here is true. I still had a very positive but it’s exactly as the people here describe it. It’s very lonely, can’t even make friends in the office because everyone is weird & only trying have their own agenda at heart. Jhah employees don’t believe when you’re ill.
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A daily tool is to watch this motivational gem before starting a new day and after your lunch hour.
https://youtube.com/shorts/dQ6gxe7F52E?si=UtB6nbx9hTPg8vKq
Maybe using hyperbole is rather Duumb. 'Dawn of time' and the 'worst place on earth'.
Now that is Duumb.
So glad to be gone from that soul su-king, depressing, and disrespectfully working environment. Cleaning your filthy feet in the washroom sinks says it all. Dirty buggers. Saudi Aramco work culture could be the worst on the planet.
I highlight the point about loneliness experienced singles workers on camp. It's not discussed enough and how it impacts on mental health.
In Midra, pre covid, the die hards would be line up outside the cafeteria before 11am for the doors to open. They would load up on the salad bar, eat for about an hour while listening to podcasts, go walking around the complex, find a place to sit inside the lobby to cool off for a while, and head back to their open plan cubicles at 1pm
Another good tip.
When you need to get out of a long, useless meeting. Set your smartphone alarm with your telephone ring tone, activate it, and go outside to answer your phone.
Some tips from an old timer:
- 6:55, get into the office first, greet your boss with the customary local greeting and smile.
- 7:05, breakfast, move on down to the dining hall, have a coffee or two. Find likeminded souls to put the world to rights.
- 7:55 Return before 8, bosses have a habit of knee-jerk invites and retaard requests at this time. It’s the pre-prayers and post breakfast “in the zone” for local management. The “DANGER ZONE”, fortunately only lasts about 2 hours!
- 9:30 coffee break number one, use opportunity to help meet your step count for the day. Maybe walk up a few flights. Sort out errands and personal stuff (some of which will be inflicted by aramco). You may need post its and OOS turned on… Occasionally this take a day to resolve.
- 10:00 Return to inbox full of last minute crazy requests from XYZ. Bat them away with suitable obfuscation. Never, ever commit in writing to anything. Don’t do anything above and beyond, it will only lead you to getting more such requests.
Never forget: no good deed goes unpunished in Aramco.
- 11:00 local management tend to disappear around this time for bowing duties and extra angry birds sessions, leave and go back for a nice lunch at home, away from the toxic waste dump of the office. You’ll get in plenty of steps walking the 3/4 mile to your car at the end of the car park (aka the plebs area).
- Return by 12:30, any later there will be no parking spaces. Also gives you the chance to greet your boss with a smile when he returns from his 2 hour prayer/lunch/ sleep break. He’ll be so impressed his little 1nfidel is working so hard for him.
- 13:00 Ensure that PowerPoint is open on at least one monitor, keep looking busy. Fire off the odd email to management on something very important to them. Set an outlook alert so you can respond within minutes to their futile requests, it’ll blow them away. Nod your head and smile. Grab another coffee, get in some more steps.
- 14:00 locals start to leave office around this time, block out your diary for chaws and important stuff for you. I often spend the time meditating or in the gym. I call this my headspace time, it’s invaluable.
- 15:00 disconnect Skype and your phone if you have one, don’t get dragged into any late problems others are trying to dump on you. Fire off any required emails, workflows or other nonsensical sh1te before shutting the laptop.
- 16:00 Leave on the dot, or if you’re boss is gone, then 10 mins after him. That is it really. You’ll be home in 15 mins then have the rest of the day to do what you actually want to to. Treat aramco as a giant joke and you can’t go too far wrong.
I can empathise 100%. Similar position, lied and cheated to on countless occasions and doing drudgery type work I last did 15 years ago. I’m basically a slave, my opinion is considered irrelevant and I’ve learnt to shut up.
The (concentration) camp is just representative of its inhabitants now, a Saudi enclave with a sprinkling of Muslim expats, old timers waiting to retire and mostly duped new westerners who have been sold a fabrication.
Almost all new joiners since Covid have been Muslim expats on plastic passports taking lowball offers, but for them a raise they could never achieve in the west.
I’ve survived a few years and for me this is a matter of hitting a USD target then leaving. I did an MBA on company time, they refused to fund any of it..so F them I thought.
If you want to survive longer get to Bahrain as often as you can, meet other normal expats. Join an expat club, try to find interests and likeminded people - some do exist, just not so many in aramco these days.
Good luck!!
Ahhh...living for the weekly report. I know that feeling well. IMO the best PowerPoint and MS Word jockeys in the world work at Aramco.
Thank you everyone, great points made from all of you and I appreciate them. I am an assistant to a director and this role is incredibly junior (did it 15 years ago) and not to mention, I was C-suite where I come from. Only to come here & find out that “Director” means senior manager basically. I am losing my skills so fast. I am only busy two days of the week and that’s only for the the Weekly highlights with the excessive font & colour scrutinisation. It is mind numbing. I’ve decided to study to fill the void and leave as soon as I have my certificate. I don’t even want to address the pay gap based solely on where you are from and how pretty you are as an assistant, also racially. It’s disgusting. Camp life is soooo dead, no one wants to socialise. It is like the zombie apocalypse mentioned by one of the comments below. Cars abandoned. Incompetence from Saudization. Wow. Just wow. At this point we’re living for Bahrain or any other local travel destination.
My experience? These are some good expats (mainly western). Most though were fearful of losing the income and so prostrated themselves to the Saudis. Never trust anyone on a monthly salary was never truer.
Get out ASAP or set yourself a target then leave. Don’t oscillate between if possible. I left after a few months, just wasn’t for me.
This is not the worst place on Earth, but it's has many shortcomings. The quality of new expat hires has been gradually descending to the point I actually dread hearing that we've got a new cricket fan joining. Not even worth learning their names when you know they aren't passing the 6 month probation. I think we've sent more back than kept in my department.
Needy people have issues everywhere they go. Perhaps KSA/Aramco just highlights the issues. No doubt that life there for westerners is an adjustment. That adjustment can be minor for some and impossible for others. Perhaps we can agree on that.
Say what you may, but the western expats that have made it out there are not needy people. The do not make friends for the sake of making friends.
Post ID: @bsr+1taFIVlc
Nice creative imagery but seems a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?
From what I understand, the Aramco Camp has become like the zombie apocalypse. New employees are surprised to see flesh shedding animated corpses shuffling around in tattered business casual clothing. These zombies go through the motions of the profession they once held, Engineers in hard hats and Doctors in white coats, searching for brains from those who still have not been infected. The last remaining humans watch their backs, looking for a way to leave before "Saudization" get them. I have a feeling that this movie will not end well.
I'm feeling every likely emotion in each word you've written. No doubt you were over promised in interviews but undelivered in the serving.
Supercharge your resume and find your way out and ASAP before it finds a way into your mental health and sabotages your career.
There were some fantastic people I had met but the majority you need to stay away from at costs. They'd been there too long and become quite internally challenged.
If you are a born and bred western expat you are seeing the last trickle of a once good place to live and work. Get out before the 6 month probation is up or stay as long as this place will let you as you contribute nothing for it will contribute nothing to you. If you have room to decline as an employee this place will help you get there. On the other hand, if you are another desperado with a passport that doesn’t actually represent who you are, then welcome. The place is full of people just like you and more are coming to help the locals get promotions by adding you to their headcount.
When I say this, it is with all due respect, coming from a good place... You should cut your losses, chalk it up to lessons learned and leave ASAP. Some people just aren't a good match for the work or lifestyle. Mistakes were made by recruiting as well as you. Just put it behind you and move on.