STC 2 Steps Back

So, the other day Madame Lily tells me she had to sit outside the main STC shop on the corner of Tahalia and King Fahad because she was refused entry. 'Really!  That's unusual', I thought.  I've always gone into STC (the smaller one down the road because it's closer to home) with or without the Hubster, sorted my phone issues and walked home again.

In fact, just before Ramadan we went into STC together to let them know we were going overseas and to please not cut the phone off when they see international call costs flooding our phone bill.  A few months previous to that I went in because the internet had stopped working on my phone and, after handing it to a pleasant, polite, young tech savvy Saudi bloke, walked out with cyber space on my iPhone working again.

Imagine my surprise when, last night, after enjoying a lovely meal at a top restaurant, Hubster, myself and a fellow, newly arrived, Kiwi wandered down to the nearest STC to get a SIM for his iPad, and, as I went to follow Hubster and company indoors, security waved at me in that way you wave at people when trying to catch their attention and said 'Madame, Madame, No'.

Pardon? I said as I wasn't expecting to engage with any male securtiy outside the STC door.
Man only, they said (There were two security and another older guy sitting at a nearby table).
What? I said, somewhat confused.
Man only, they repeated, supported now by the older guy. 
Really! I said, remembering my recent conversation with Madame Lily.  Since when?
No lady, they said with a tone that suggested they had no idea why either, they were just doing their job and waving me to get out of the doorway where I had been standing for the duration of our short exchange.
But I've always gone in here, I said

Two younger, fashionably attired blokes who may or may not have been Saudi, (my ability to differentiate between Arabs and their particular Middle Eastern origins is still terribly poor after all this time), sitting at another nearby table joined the conversation, in a good natured fashion.

This is Saudi, one of them said.  A dumb country with dumb rules, And they laughed.  There ensued a conversation in Arabic between all five blokes, presumably on the rules in Saudi Arabia and the new rules in STC.  While they were talking I considered my options:

1. Walk into STC and upset security's day;  
2. Stand around on the street like an idiot; or 
3. Take a seat at the nearby tables by the blokes as there was nowhere else to sit.

I chose Option Number 3.

So, can I sit here then? I asked the blokes.
Of course!, they said.  
Take a seat, they invited.
And the ridiculousness of the situation made me laugh.

The younger blokes cleared their rubbish from the table, pulled out a chair and stood up to move over to join security and the old bloke at their table.  (They may have invited me to sit outdoors, but local custom dictates they not sit with me - nearby, at the next table, is good enough).  We were just getting into a conversation on my nationality when Hubster came back out.  He hadn't realized I had been stopped at the door and wondered why I was still outside.  He was surprised when told the situation.

Seconds later our friend exited STC and joined us, somewhat baffled by yet another condition recently implemented by STC to help them cater to the huge anticipated iPhone 6 rush...

 ...They are only doing iPhone inquiries tonight, he said
What? we chimed together.
Yes, said the older guy still sitting in the chair near security who I now deduced was an STC employee on an extended coffee break, only iPhone 6 all this week.
All week? Hubster queried.
Yes, he said.
Shall we walk up to the big STC, then?
No, he said, it's the same there, too.

We left STC then and headed back to the car.
This, we told our friend, is typical of Saudi Arabia.  One day is one rule, the next day another.  It's what makes working with regulatory body's (or anybody for that matter) a nightmare for expats like Hubster who cannot get international companies to understand exactly what life is like here.  (He particularly gets annoyed at the Head Honchos in Dubai who blab on about Saudi being no different to anywhere else, but who rarely come here and, when they do, never stay overnight because 'OMG...it's so different!  I often get the impression that Head Honcho's are Dumb Asses!)

I couldn't help thinking that STC had let the new generation down by closing its retail spaces to women.   Noor tells me a new ladies branch of STC has opened, up the road and around the corner - much further for me to go now.  (I have to catch a taxi with an unrelated male to get there - so if the point was to stop women engaging with unrelated males of questionable origin STC, or whoever is pushing these new rules, has failed terribly - duh!)

Presumably the purpose of opening a women only STC space is to give local women jobs in telecommunication retail, though I can't be sure of that rational without delving into the discussion with someone in the know, and I don't know anyone in the know right now.  (Anyone in the know out there please, feel free to enlighten us).  If that is the case then I'm disappointed in STC who have taken Saudi Arabia two steps backwards because everyone knows that telecom companies make billions of dollars every year - why couldn't they spend a fraction of that money and refurb their current retails sites to cater to female employees.

'Welcome to Saudi Arabia' we told our Kiwi Newcomer - 'a country full of young people who crave, neigh demand, the latest modern technology but are bullied by a bunch of cronies who psychologically live in the stone age'.   Yes, only in Saudi can you insist on flashing around modern accessories and be backwards at the same time.  And STC, and every other telecom company, should be leading the charge forward into the new age, not bending to the old guard, else the rest of the world might start to think you're all a bunch of far too rich wooses.





Ka Kite,
Kiwi

Saudi Retail: Big Boys v The Corner Store

An article I was reading recently in  MEED, Middle East Business Intelligence, about the Saudi retail sector made me ponder about the possible demise of the corner store.  It wasn't the article itself that caused the ponderance.  It was the information gleaned from it in combination with and a piece in the Arab News, read not 15 minutes later, that got me thinking.

Not being a business wiz I have no idea if these two concepts are as connected as I thought (the only reason I was scanning through these articles was because they were on the coffee table of the waiting room I was lounging around in) but here is what sprang to mind...

Basically the MEED article said something along the lines that, currently, Saudi retail is mostly driven by the small corner store operation and there is lots of room for consolidation.

If you're one of the Big Boys I guess there's nothing wrong with that idea.  In theory, closing your small operations in preference for bigger 'everything under one roof' shopping barns helps reduce costs and supposedly gives the consumer better prices due to the Big Boys buying power.

However, consolidation also, unfortunately, gets rid of the small, local 'corner store', taking away the shop owners (and highly likely, their families) livelihood and tends to help the rich get richer, leaving the little guy wondering WTF!  Let's face it, that is exactly what has happened everywhere else around the world and quite frankly, down in Kiwiland, it hasn't been a good thing.  (I wonder how you say WTF! in Arabic?).

The piece I read in the Arab News was about Saudi Arabia's high unemployment and possible strategies for dealing with it.  The hierarchy in Saudi have, to paraphrase the article, made the following call to the local masses - 'Start your own business!  Don't wait for cushy government jobs or highly competitive private sector employment.  Get out there and be independent business owners'.  And to help them out the Government is cleaning expats out of the corner stores so that young, motivated, hard working, business savvy yet currently unemployed Saudi's can take their places.

The articles made me wonder who's going to come out on top in Saudi retail.  The Big Boys.  Or the independent business owner operating the local store.

Given that Saudi seems to be following global patterns in its 'westernisation' and that only a small few hold the reigns to, well, everything (and seem to like it that way), I don't hold out high hopes for any future independent Saudi business owner.

That's what I was pondering that day in the office.
Of course, if I'm way off base, please enlighten me.

Saudization and The On-going 'Illegal Expat' Saga.

For the last two months (I would say three, but really, by the time a month had past most of the authorities involved hadn't got their act together so I'm sticking with two), the 'Illegal Expat Sweep', a strategy under Saudization, has been taking place.  Here's a little update of how things have been trucking in case you don't read local Saudi papers.

I wrote a post, called Saudization, that touched on the Illegal Expat Sweep.  If you haven't read it, here's things in a nutshell - For what they see as relevant reasons, the government decided to clean up, and out, the number of expats in the country.  The current 'Illegal Expat Sweep' mainly affects those from the Philippines and South East Asian countries.  To be 'illegal' in this sweep you are either not working for the Saudi who sponsored you into the country, or your iqama does not match your job title, or you are a Haj runaway.  I understand the majority of illegal exapts fall into the first two categories.  If I was an investigative journalist I would hunt down the numbers of all groups to verify that last statement, but I'm not so you'll just have to trust me!

'Illegal Expats' once rounded up are given three options to get themselves legalized as far as this sweep is concerned.

1. Leave the country,
2. Transfer their sponsorship to the company they are currently working for if it's not their Saudi sponsor, or
3. Go back to the Saudi who sponsored them.

Let's look at these options more fully.

Option 1: Leave The Country

A lot of expats are opting to leave the country and the government is making it easy for them to get their final exit visa by waiving fees, penalties and fines. The Arab News ran this story...

Labor Ministry issues status correction guidelines

... which is quite good in explaining 'the corrective process'.

Even with the Labor Ministry's process things have not been plain sailing for everybody.  Issues include:

• the time it takes to get through the process, 
• the Saudi organisations involved in the process not actually knowing the process, 
• Saudi and Expat organisations not having enough man power to get though the hundreds of thousands of applications, and 
• the expats' sponsors not giving back said expats passports.  (In Saudi, though its not legal, it is common practice for the employer to keep the employees passport and you can read about that in my post That Passport Is Mine, Thanks).

No doubt moving the numbers who want to leave Saudi out of the country is a logistical nightmare and, given the issues mentioned above, not everyone is happy with the process, so stories have been filtering back to the expat circles.  Stories of the queues outside embassies and passport centers sweltering in the Saudi heat abound, stories of less than pleasant personnel sending expats from pillar to post and back again have popped up and, more recently, are stories of sponsors extorting cash from expats before they will give their passports back so they can travel.

I have to say, I don't find the extortion stories the least bit surprising.  Those Saudi's who've been cashing in on the sponsorship system, particularly through the 'free visa' loophole, and want to continue to do so by keeping passports or demanding payment from expats are, in my opinion, excretory orifaces (aka arse holes).    Someone high up must think they are ori-fecal too, because in Saudi Gazette the other day was this article:

Sponsors violating workers’ rights
...which basically says that expats can get new passports and residency permits even if they don't have the paperwork from the sponsor because he (or she) won't hand it over.

Option 2: Transfer Sponsorship To Current Employer

Transferring of sponsorship to a current employer also has it's issues because of Saudization rules.  If the company is in the Green Basket for Saudization purposes they're happy to legally accept workers until their green limit is reached.  If the company is not in the GREEN, they don't want to legalize their workers by sponsoring them.  That would be, I imagine, most of the construction, roading, waste management and other labour intensive industries who really relied on 'free' expats or 'runaways' for manpower.  These industries can't seem to attract sufficient Saudi's to the job, not unless they engage them as managers or similar which only serves to make the companies very  top heavy.  Naturally this doesn't make economic sense and you can bet the blokes that will miss out on being paid a decent wage in the long run, will be the laborers.

Latest news indicates that companies are starting to push back on the Nitiqat system by asking to be allowed to hire expats even though they aren't GREEN, largely because Saudi's either aren't experienced enough to do the job, are slack at the job or simply refuse to do the work on offer.

Option 3: Return To Your Sponsor

Expats returning to the Saudi who initially sponsored them into KSA is causing a weeny headache for the sponsors, especially if they are of the 'Free Visa' ilk.  Basically, many 'Free Visa' sponsors, if not most, have no jobs for the expats they bring into the country because they hadn't intended them to work for their company anyway.  They only intended to make money off the expats by collecting a little stipend from all of them each week for the pleasure of being allowed to live in Saudi Arabia.  Taking back their expats (yes in this country people own each other) risks putting their company (for those who actually had one in the first place) into the RED basket of Saudization.  Being in the RED means the company can't sponsor any more expats and have to rely on their fellow countrymen to do the work and, as previously mentioned, at this point in time that ain't working out so well.

Once all the new grads from the trade training programmes and work training schemes that are rapidly being set up by the government are saturating the market with skilled Saudi's, then things might look brighter for the company owner.  (Unless he owns a business that is highly labour intensive.  Getting blisters and work hardened hands isn't yet considered a great thing for most of the new generation).  But that is going to take some time.

Of course, those Saudi's who never had a company in the first place risk being charged for defrauding the Ministry, as do their friends within the Ministries who helped to push through their fraudulent applications. (I, along with many other expats, seriously doubt any Saudi will be taken to court any time soon.)

One expat wife told me that before the 'Illegal Expat Sweep' her husband, a bloke with a trade, was working for another company and getting paid regularly.  Life was good.  Now, his sponsor has taken him back and gives him menial work to do, but he doesn't get paid.  Life is not looking so rosy.  Apparently his sponsor thinks this expat clean out will all blow over and he can go back to making money off the sponsorship system.  He just has to wait it out and throw his expats a bone now and then.  Rumour has it he's not the only sponsor thinking along those lines.  Wouldn't it put another bee in the sponsors' collective bonnets  if the government scrapped the sponsorship system altogether!

It is a bit unfair that expats who arrived on Free Visa's are being called 'illegal' and are lumped in with the run-aways.  Expats that arrived on 'Free Visas' are not 'illegal' in my book.  The Saudi who brought them over, on the other hand, and the agent he (or she) paid a back hander to is definitely the one acting illegally.  The expats are not illegal because they were sponsored and the Saudi sponsor was quite clear in his (or her) intentions for entering the sponsorship game - the Free Visa expats will work elsewhere and the sponsor will have very little to do with them, except for collecting their cash. Which means, in a round about fashion, the Free Visa expats are doing exactly as their sponsor intended and are, therefore, not 'illegal' or 'runaways'.

Regardless of that little bee in my bonnet on the illegal expat sweep, in order to get the local population up to par with life in the real world a lot of things have to change in Saudi and the hierarchy is well aware of it.  One problem that must be dealt with is the reliance on expats to do almost everything.  I think it's fab the government is setting up trade training programs and clearing the way for Saudi's to get jobs, male and female.  Feedback indicates that the newly employed, the women in particular, are loving working, making money,  learning new things and having  more purpose in life than deciding 'which cafe shall we go to today'.

The illegal expat sweep has been criticized for not being implemented in the best way or with the best time frame, but something had to be done and Saudi hierarchy has this habit of just getting on with whatever it is they need to do.  Not a bad way to live, really.  July 3rd is the last day of the grace period for the illegal expat sweep and I know a lot of people are waiting to see what happens next.



Ka Kite,
Kiwi


Photo credit: http://in.reuters.com/

Tough Love.

Have you heard of Tough Love?  It's a phrase usually associated with parenting, where parents attempt to cope with, and hopefully rein in, the behavior of their wayward children through the application of firm boundaries strengthened by firm resolve and follow through on sticking to their guns.  Basic parenting really.

I get a sense that someone in Saudi hierarchy has heard of the Tough Love concept and has decided to implement it on the local populace.   Expats affected are simply fall out from the process.

The Hierarchy are busy setting up technical training centers so Saudi's can replace expats in  trade jobs such as plumbers, electricians, hospitality and hair dressing.  Youth are being encouraged to participate which, I gather, a lot are happy to do initially - it beats hanging round doing nothing.  The drop off rate though, according to a training bloke I met, is quite high.   However, despite that, feedback from the folks running a plastics center I visited is quite positive for students who stick around.

Hearing news that Saudi's were being trained for trades reminded me of a local radio station I was listening to one evening a couple of years back, where the guest presenter was saying how important it was for Saudi's to learn basic skills, like how to use a screwdriver, so they can do their own repairs around the home.  I do recall laughing when the presenter said that most blokes round here don't even know what a screwdriver looks like.  I'm guessing trade training centers are going to change that!

Women are also going to know how to handle a few tools as factories have been ordered to hire women, feminizing roles that used to be the domain of men, and mostly expat men at that.  This is, apparently, going great guns with local women now on the production line for cars, and vegetables and all manner of other industries and loving it.

Word has it that the unemployed need to start being grateful for the opportunities being given.  Saudization and the recent 'illegal expat sweep' is effectively turfing a few expats to create work space for the high number of unemployed locals, and those who keep turning down jobs, especially if they are collecting Hafiz (the Saudi equivalent of the Dole), will not be looked favorably upon.

Companies have expressed frustration at Saudi's who, once they land a job, only stick around getting paid for the training period and then decide to bugger off.  I'm not sure how the Hierarchy have decided to deal with this yet, but something is in the wind.  Workplace training has been implemented at most companies because it has been recognized that Saudi's need the extra, on the job training before they can effectively replace current expats.  However, as one manager told me, no amount of skill training can change the attitude to work that most arrive at the desk with.

Maids are also getting harder to come by unless you're prepared to pay the increased price though, if you ask me, it's a ploy to slowly phase out maids so housewives can be housewives like they are in the rest of the world.

Sometimes it looks as though this Tough Love attitude is directed at the local populace, mainly via employment strategies - a sort of 'we're doing everything we can to make work available for you, now you get off your butt and run with the opportunities'.  But sometimes I wonder if it's the conservative, backward looking bunch that are really behind the changes being driven, the thinking being once people are working and earning and on a roll living productive lives the idea of going backwards will not be palatable, and anyone attempting to force backward steps will be turfed fairly quickly by the power of forward motion. That's my conspiracy theory, anyway.

Of course, one also wonders if all this activity has anything to do with the rumour circulating that the Saudi golden years aren't going to last as long as initially thought.  Time to harden up, as we say in NZ.  Hence my impression someone in Saudi has decided to exercise some Tough Love.



Ka Kite,
Kiwi

Saudization

I've had this article on Saudization in my Draft Box for ages and have played around with it quite a bit because the current scheme for employment of nationals is an ongoing saga with updates required often.  But I've had enough of this post in my draft box so, here it is....

I love the way the Saudi hierarchy sees something needs doing and just does it.
A road needs building, we'll build it.
We need schools and hospitals - let's build them.
We need employment - we present Saudization.
Yes I love how decisive the heirarchy is.
No discussion. 
Just do it!
I wonder if all the hierarchy in KSA wear Nike?

Saudization.  The Kingdom's strategy for increasing employment for locals.  Officially it's called Nitiqat though my preference is the 'Traffic Light System'.

It's been chugging along lately.  While reading articles about Nitiqat today I recalled the stress that it's impending implementation caused a number of expats.  Mostly those with jobs that Saudi's have absolutely no interest in doing.  Which means anything that doesn't come with 'Manager' status.  Status and title tends to mean a lot to Saudi's, more particularly the men.

For those unfamiliar with Saudization here's a brief overview:
To deal with Saudi unemployment the government decided that all except the smallest companies must have a certain percentage of Saudi on the payroll.  The bigger your company the more Saudi you should have.  Each company will fall into a colour category based on whether or not this percentage is met. 
The category your company is in affects your ability to issue visa's for importing new expat workers.

• Blue - you're special and can do what you want;
• Green - you meet the percentage and get some visa concessions - go ahead and hire some more expats;
• Yellow - you do not meet the percentage and cannot issue new visa's to get expats. However, you only have to turf a few expats and replace them with Saudi's to re-colour yourself;
• Red - you definitely do not meet the percentage and have a real problem on your hands. Replace most of your staff with locals and, until you do, you can only dream of issuing visa's for more expats.

Being able to sponsor expat workers is important for a number of reasons but the main one is, they work.  Companies often baulk at hiring Saudi's because the current local interpretation of the term 'work' and every body else's understanding of the word is vastly different. ( I'm fairly certain this is the fall out from recent oil wealth because making a living out of the desert in days gone by would not have been, and still isn't, easy).

Nitiqat is giving everybody a wake up call.
The youth of Saudi are wanting jobs.
Nitiqat is, apparently, giving them jobs.
Finding out they actually have to work at those jobs is a bit of shock! (for the job hunters).
Figuring out how to make them good at the jobs is causing a few headaches. (for the job providers).

Announcements from Big Wigs that most jobs done by expats aren't suitable for Saudi's because they are 'too menial' only serves to keep a number of Saudi's picky about the jobs they will do.  But get a job they must.  And a real job, too.  Not a fake one.

When Nitiqat first came out, stories abounded of the way company's were getting around the rules.

I understand the most common strategy was for owners to have the names of friends and family on their employee list, although they didn't have to turn up to work at all, unless a Ministry type threatened to visit.  Then it was all hands on deck, looking busy.  The government is not taking kindly to companies who try to continue that little ruse.

Another, quite entrepreneurial, strategy was Saudi's getting paid a little pocket money by putting their name on the employee list of lots of companies.  The governments new rule, that companies must pay GOSI (General Organisation for Social Insurance) for their employees, has served to nip that scheme in the bud.

About the same time as Nitiqat came along, Hafiz was also introduced.  Hafiz is a dole system with rules.  You're only on it for a year.  In that year you'll be offered work that you are expected to take or you'll lose your cushy income.  There was a rush to sign up for, and cash in on, Hafiz - I know more than a few ladies who were at the front of the crowd.  Now they aren't so happy.  They didn't think the party would end!

Saudi Arabia should be moving ahead due to Saudi effort but, like repairing a broken wall in an old house, when you start fixing one area of rot, you discover another mess that needs attention, and Nitiqat keeps uncovering issues.

Now that the government is pushing for Saudi's to be employed, those same Saudi's have decided they want to be paid more and it is safe to say that the Saudi pay packet, generally speaking, is fairly crap.   The Ministry has come up with a plan to find the money for increased salaries - Penalise workplaces for the expats they have on their books then, use the money from those penalties to increase the Saudi salary.

Some economists said that the fall out from this scheme would be inflation, though others think expats would be forced to pay the extra cost which, I think, is more likely.

Expat levy to add SR60bn economic burden on Saudis

The latest in the Saudization Saga, The Passport Raids, we heard about when we arrived back in Riyadh a few days ago.  Apparently the streets of Saudi's largest cities were very quiet for two weeks as companies rang their workers and told them not to come in.

The Passport Raids was Saudi trying to rid itself of illegal workers, presumably to open up the job market for nationals.  I was told the basic premise for being an illegal worker in these raids was 'you are not working for your sponsor' or 'your iqama does not match your job title'.

Given that many a Shady Saudi over the years has been cashing in on the sponsorship system by offering 'free visa's', there are hundreds of thousands of 'illegal' workers in Saudi.

Here is how 'free visa' works, according to a very chatty taxi driver I know.  A Saudi bloke goes to the government with papers stating he has a company that needs 300 workers.  The government office then issues him with 300 visa's.  The Saudi goes to an agent and says find me 100 workers (for the real business), and here's 200 visa's that you can sell off at, let's say, 10,000SAR a piece, making Mr Saudi a tidy profit.

The reason they are called Free Visa's is because the worker who buys one is "free" to work for other employers. And, though the Saudi remains the sponsor and keeps the workers passport, he declares himself "free" from the obligations of sponsorship (because sponsorship done right does have rules and obligations) and the worker is generally left to fend for himself.  I'm not sure, but I understand that Free Visa Sponsorship was never actually legal, it was more that a blind eye was turned.  That is, till now.

One can only presume that Free Visa Sponsors are being dealt with during these raids as well as Free Visa Purchasers, though knowing Saudi as I do, I doubt it.

There are also thousands of workers on Iqama's that do not equate to the job they do.  In days gone by, when a legit company wanted Iqama's for their workers they stated the kind of work the company did and asked for Iqama's to suit the employees roles.  The Iqama Office however, for whatever reason, didn't send Iqama's to suit everybody.  So secretaries are Iqama Mechanics, accountants are Iqama Engineers etc.  (Last year there was a crack down on engineers because it was discovered that loads of engineers were, in fact, not engineers.  Rumour has it that the Iqama office (or somebody closely related) kept receiving a lot of Engineer Iqamas and needed to get rid of them, so companies were told take them or get nothing).

One must now presume that the Visa/Iqama  process has become more stringent in light of Saudization.

We were away in NZ (our son got married) and missed the excitement of the raids which also closed International Schools  because a large percentage of the teachers are wives of expats.  The Iqama of an expat wife has 'Must Not Work' stamped across it.  Mine does.  When we asked a friendly Saudi about my current work status (because I was contemplating finding more work), he said not to worry, only Indians, Pakistani's and such like were on the hit list.

It crossed my mind, when I heard about the International School closures, that stopping expat wives from working as teachers in International Schools was a bit ridiculous from a Saudization point of view.  I mean, how many Saudi's would really be happy replacing the wives to teach Indian, Pakistani and such like children.   Although newspaper articles often sing the praises of new agreements signed between countries and important men pose for lovely smiley photographs, on the ground in Saudi, racism is rife.

The following articles give another spin on the Passport Raids and Saudization  "Reduce Our Dependence on Expatriates But Don't Scare Them.

And that, in a nutshell, is my overview of how Saudization has been trucking to date.  You can't really say life is ever dull in the Land of Sand.  They are always up to something.

Saudi Women Are Working on Cosmetic Counters.

Riyadh Gallery

On my most recent trip out and about in Riyadh the other day it hit me how many Saudi women are working on cosmetic counters and reception desks these days.

Some time ago the King decreed that women were to be employed in lingerie shops which duly came to pass without the world coming to an end as some conservatives were trying to tell people would happen.  He followed this up with a decree that all cosmetic counters must be manned by women.  And soon, according to this report in the Saudi Gazette, women will be working in abaya shops, clothing stores and numerous other retail outlets.

Make-up counters and lingerie stores aren't the only place you will find Saudi women at work today. A recent trip to the hospital found a shifting sea of black amongst the admin/reception staff.   New arrivals to the country have complained how unwelcoming it is to approach a woman in black. It pays to remember that a year ago you wouldn't have been met by a woman at the counter, much less one in black.
This is progress.
Celebrate it. 

Keeping the youthful population of Saudi from revolting as they have in the rest of the Middle East due largely to unresponsive, out of touch, rip off leadership probably had something to do with these decisions.  

The pressure to deal with the high unemployment of Saudi women and the nonsensicalness of demanding extreme gender segregation then making strange men sell women their underwear and look deeply into their eyes to tell them what color eye shadow suits their personality was probably added incentive to implementing the changes.

As mall trawling is not one of my regular pass times it wasn't until yesterday that I met a wonderful young Saudi woman providing customer service at a makeup counter in a major department store.

At this point in my post I can hear my daughters - 'Mum, you're at a make-up counter!  OMG!' 
Make-up is not something I do, apart from a little lippy now and then.  Skin care, yes.  Make up, no.  The stop at the make-up counter was for my Saudi friend, for what is a mall trip without company.

Photo Credit:www.theage.com.au

We got to talking with this young sales assistant because Saudi women are inquisitive people and are not averse to asking whatever question is on their mind.  She was interested in how an expat came to be out shopping with a Saudi.  We were interested in how she got her job.

Her story, which N translated for me, goes something like this:

She needs the job to support her through her study course.  She has every intention of working her way to the top of the profession she has chosen to study.  The cosmetic job was advertised at the institute where she studies.  She put in her application and got the job.

She gets up in the morning and heads off to an institute to study her course from 7am till 2pm.  Then she comes to the department store and works from 4pm till 10pm.  She does this most days of the week. On days when there is a special promotion (and promotions often last 2 - 3 days), she has to give up her attendance at study to work on the shop floor all day.  She admitted she is very tired.

N and I discussed her story as we wondered around the mall.  Our discussion reminded me of two things that are oft times overlooked by expats as we comment on how different life is in the Magic Kingdom - Not all Saudi's are rich.  Not all Saudi's are lazy.

Of course quite a few are rich. 
Obscenely so.

And a lot more are...not lazy exactly.   Lazy doesn't appropriately define the current general Saudi attitude (mostly of the males) to work.  Lazy implies a lack of energy.   Saudi work ethic, or lack of, is more complex than lacking energy.  There's a whole raft of religious, cultural, economic and historical factors that contribute to the less than optimal work attitude of many of today's Saudi,(especially the men), and I'm sure someone out there is studying it and writing a thesis on it.

With so many stories circulating about how Saudi's, (mostly the men), don't like to, don't want to or don't know how to work it was inspiring to meet a young woman who is taking hold of the changes being implemented by the current King with both hands and making the most of them.  And she's working hard.

It has been said by many that the women will change this country (as they have most others - can you feel the female bias?).  If this one young woman is a reflection of the attitude that the female half of the Saudi population possesses then watch out men.  You're about to be steam rolled by women working on make-up counters!

Ka Kite,
Kiwi