Follow your instinct

Back to Saudi Arabia - Part 8

The procedure to go to Saudi Arabia was similar to my last mission in 1989. I already knew the circuit and the requirements. The candidature required a pre-approval by the Saudi Representative in France, before obtaining the visa.

The only difference was with living conditions in KSA, they were slightly different. Family will not join me throughout the mission, but I was free to invite them to spend vacation with me; all arrangements for visa and travel will be made by the company.

The family was already used to it by now. During the past two years when I was in Qatar they used to see me for two weeks after every 8 weeks.

This time they would see me for two weeks after every 16 weeks. Moreover, spend vacation with me in Jeddah at least twice a year.

After a month of training in Thomson I was ready to go. All documents were ready.

I arrived in Jeddah and was driven directly to the compound, into a small villa as my permanent house. The housing was suitable for a single person without family. I was already familiar with the surroundings; it was the same compound where I had spent five years.

I was also familiar with the base, but as a new arrival the company's agent had to take me to the Colonel who would be my boss for the entire duration of my mission.

The working hours at the base were a little different; 7.15 in the morning to 2 pm. Some agents would go directly to their families after work hours. They had already finished their day of work. Since I was alone, I had decided to go to the administrative support base office, and attend sometimes the meetings.

The support base meetings were helpful to coordinate my work with the staff in France.

At the base I met new colleagues, French as well as Saudis. My day of work used to be essentially with the Saudi Military staff; a few civilians were doing the office work.

The company had provided me with money enough to buy a new medium size car. But by adding some more from my own pocket I had managed to buy Camry, just a year old model.

But the company was using a bus that would bring the personnel to the base in the morning and take them back home in the afternoon.

Unlike Qatar, alcohol is prohibited in Saudi Arabia.

But that year 1998 France was celebrating the victory of the French team in the world cup championship. During the celebration of the French National day, July 14, all guests who were invited at the Consul General's residence, were happy to drink and eat the French delicacies as much as one could.

I was tasked by the Consul, among three other members of Thomson, to keep vigil; discretely make sure that everything ends up peacefully without incident. We were designated our areas of surveillance, and were supposed to report any unusual incident immediately to the security.

The celebration ended peacefully. We even had a few glasses of Champagne at the Consuls office after all guests had left.

A week later, to my great surprise, a staff member of the consulate came with a package for me, saying it was a token of gratitude from the Consul for the work I had done.

When I opened the package, there was a bottle of Johnny Walker, a bottle of Red Wine and a few pieces of French sausage.

That was such a wonderful and unexpected gesture of appreciation by the Consulate.

I was performing well my duties as Configuration Manager. I used to do the monthly reporting to my boss at the support base to inform of my activities.

I had developed a few databases in Microsoft Access, which were helping me for my daily work.

Official databases were regularly maintained up-to-date.

The Colonel who was promoted to Maj. General appreciated my work. I used to spend sometimes hours discussing with him, advising him on several issues related to our job. I was the link with Thomson for any work related requirements.

One day we were informed that some slots for French were going to be slashed; almost half of the personnel would terminate his contract. We were two engineers in the same department; one of us would have to leave.

During our progress meeting at the support base, the management made me to understand that my post was important and they could not afford to close it. They would rather sacrifice the post of the other engineer.

In three months half of the staff would leave. My other colleague was packing his personal affairs in view of shipping it back to France.

All of a sudden, unexpected change took place. The General informed me that my contract would terminate in a month instead of the other engineer.

How did that happen so quickly? Decisions were already made. Nothing could be reversed now.

There was definitely treason somewhere. Who had done it?

A few weeks later I found out through one back-channel, that a Major from another section, other Engineer's boss, had written a letter to a friend in Project Office in Riyadh, to swap our contract numbers.

My slot number was 010 and the other slot number was 011. The letter was saying that there was a mistake in the initial decision and asking simply to correct it from 011 to 010.

Off course the people on the slots were two different people. So, how was it possible that the other engineer had already received the notification almost three months earlier, and now only they had realized that there was a mistake?

Through high influence of the military personnel, this is what was done.

So I finished my short contract of only 1.5 year, to return back to France.

As what most of my Saudi colleagues said to me 'Whatever happens, happens for a good reason.'

The Major General, my boss, tried his best to intervene and change the decision. But probably his position was not powerful enough to provoke a change.

But before I left, he promised me that he will try his best to bring me back to Saudi Arabia