Do you want to work in Saudi Arabia?

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Perhaps some of you wonder what it would be like, working in Saudi Arabia. Well for all those aspirants or those who dreamt of working here, I can provide you some inputs or rudiments about working in the Middle East. First of all, the concept or perception (just as what I thought when I was still in the Philippines) that what one can see in Saudi are only desserts, camels, lambs and the thought that there’s no water here is wrong. As you can see, the photograph I posted was taken from part of the city of Jeddah, a very nice view of one of the biggest, attractively modernized and wealthiest cities in the Middle East. Anyway, I just conferred to you an idea how Saudi Arabia looks like now a days, its cities (especially Jeddah and Riyadh) are definitely one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Economically it grows at a surprisingly rate over the past years. Many people from western countries are coming in for work and business, not to mention the millions of workers from different parts of Asia that includes the more or less 2 million overseas Filipino workers who are scattered in almost all regions of the Kingdom. Now to give you an overview about our life in Saudi as OFW, I will start by describing how we carry out our day to day living here in a fairly different or distinct place. Working in KSA normally comes in a package. Aside from your basic salary which is absolutely tax free, we are provided with free accommodation, food, laundry and transportation (shuttle or bus, others are provided with their own car) to and from the workplace. We were also provided with soap and tissues as well as coffee, milk, tea or juice (for free) at the office which is rare to happen when working in the Philippines. Our daily routine (which I find it tedious) starts from taking our breakfast at the mess hall (the setting is really like a restaurant with people serving us), a coaster or bus will then take us to our workplace. At 12:00 noon we will be taken to our camp for our lunch break and return back to the office at 1 pm. The same thing happens at dinner time. Imagine this will be happening to you every day? Since Saudi is not an open country, we cannot just roam around anywhere anytime we like just as when were in the Philippines though we also have scheduled shopping trip at least once a month. Their mores is much different than us, and we have to follow it to steer clear of problems. Work timings normally start from Saturday to Thursday from 7am to 5 pm, with Fridays as rest days. Some companies allowed or required employees to render overtime which really give us a chance to earn more. Contracts range from a one year to two years renewable, with an average of 30 days paid vacation every year depending on your status and to the company you are in, some gets 15 paid and 15 days unpaid every year, while others get 45 days paid vacation. NOW MY QUESTION IS, DO YOU WANT TO WORK IN SAUDI?