After a restless 4 hours of sleep it’s time to get up, shower, eat and head for my first day of work at JacobsZATE (JZ).  The first photo I take is of my first sunrise on morning 1 in Saudi.  It’s really quite beautiful and promises to be a great day.

Went down to the main lobby restaurant for a buffet breakfast which is stunning.  The food at this hotel is amazing, fresh and healthy.  Soooo, yup, I eat way too much.  I’m reading my book on the iPad while I eat and feel very relaxed.  My last correspondence with work stated there would be a driver for me at 7:30am.  I finish breakfast at 7:30 and walk out of the restaurant only to find the driver was told to be there at 7am and he’s not a happy camper….neither is the other passenger in the car!  Ok, so now it’s not looking like such a great start to my first day.  It’s in the mid-90s already and rapidly getting hotter.

JacobsZATE is now located in a new 12 story building and is still under construction.  I get to the lobby and am assigned to Sebastian from HR.  The day is spent in a conference room with 22 other new employees as we do orientation.  By the way, in case you aren’t aware of it, there are no females in our group.  Due to Saudi laws it is very difficult for women in the workplace.  I think I happened to see 3 women in the building and believe they may have been JZ employees but I’m not sure.  Women in the workplace is very rare for many reasons but a few are:  women cannot drive, cannot travel without a male companion and must be segregated in the workplace.  This means that if those 3 ladies are employees they work in a part of the building that men are not allowed in, have separate toilets, dining, entry, etc.  JacobsZATE currently has about 1600 in Kingdom employees of which 24 are women!  Don’t think this is a reflection of the firm, it is NOT, this is a reality of the country.

Pretty much all day through orientation we all struggle with sleep.  Apparently most of us arrived in Kingdom in the middle of the night.  It was a long day!

Now I’ll tell you about traffic and the driving here in Saudi.  It’s BAD!  On the way back to the hotel we pass no less than 4 accidents in about as many blocks.  There are apparently no enforced traffic laws so driving is a daily risk.  I’m thankful that I have a driver and can sit in the back and not freak out.  At some point in my stay here I will get a car and be doing my own driving.  Lane markings and stop signs are really only suggestions.  The first rule of driving here is to NEVER, ever make eye contact with another driver!  The second rule is to spend as much time looking in your rear view mirrors as through the windshield.  There are 3 basic types of drivers here; local Saudi’s, Western Expats (US, Canada, UK, etc.) and Eastern Expats (India, Pakistan, Asia, etc.).  The Saudi’s drive crazy fast with the attitude that if they die it is God’s will.  The Eastern expats drive really slow and excessively cautious which actually causes more trouble than the fast drivers.  Then there is the the rest of us somewhere in the middle trying to avoid both the others.

Dinner at the hotel.  Call Katie on the Magic Jack and go to bed.

End of first full day in Saudi.