Well for those of you who are a bit shocked I am in Saudi Arabia-so am I!!!
The other day Wonderful Wanda-my main contact at Saudi Aramco was telling me about a young twenty year old woman who took a big leap and just moved from Ohio to New York. I found myself saying WOW that's a big move!. Then I bursted out laughing saying Well, not as big a move as Saudi Arabia!
Just to catch everyone up. I am working with new college hires who have just been hired by Saudi Aramco. They are in the upstream part of the oil business.
Upstream means they work with geologists to find the oil fields, drill and transport the oil to the refinery. Downstream is refinery to retail.
I will be working with them alongside technical experts on a business simulation for 8 weeks. I act as their manager, teach them teamwork, project planning, oral and written communication skills. I could use my best editor buddies on the written skills feedback (melissa, sara, barbie and theresa). I am already learning about active and passive voice:). They actually receive grades from me-YIKES!
I could not feel more welcomed and taken care of by my co-workers! They literally walked with me to store to buy my cell phone, to another store to buy my wifi hotspot...
As you can imagine, everything and I mean everything is different here. Cell phones, computing, hotspots, wireless, credit cards, cash machines, taxis, driving, currency, food, clothes, work hours (7am-4pm), work week (sun-thurs) and language.
The corporate village I live in looks like Kansas in terms of simple clean wood frame homes in one section and then it looks like Santa Fe modern stucco homes in another section. The corporate campus is about a 10 minute walk from my home and it looks like any modern corporate campus in the US. My office building is a 20 minutes walk.
OMG !!! Walking to my office in the AM it is about 85 degrees at 7am but walking at 4PM the other day it was 118 degrees and with no exaggeration I thought I might faint before I made it home! For those of you following weather here on the iphone---do not believe what you read! They have been 5-10 degrees lower than the thermometers here.
Many of you who know me well and know that I am one of the least heat seeking people you will ever meet. So the irony of being in Saudi is not lost on me.
But not to be outwitted by 118 degrees I have a new method to avoid heat stroke. I buy two ice cold cans of ginger ale before I go outside and wear them. I put them on my body and can make it home from the office in relative comfort! I hope some of you are falling off your chair LAUGHING when you imagine this...but it really works!
If you want to sign up and receive an email for this blog each time I post anew...go to the bottom of the page and sign up for email.
Hilarious. So does Canada Dry keep you cooler than Sprite? Coke may be too much caffine, huh. I guess Canada is a good cool image of way up north. Adventure on, baby
ReplyDelete