Induction Day

Sunday was our first day at DXB…lots and lots of paperwork; but amazingly I only had to sign my name twice. They really, really, really, really like passport photos here. I had about 30 made and sent here before, back in the application process, and now they are stapled to just about every paper I see. Plus the ones I had made this weekend. Thank goodness all us new folks are good lookin. They covered about everything: health benefits, retirement scheme (the word scheme doesn’t carry the same sinister connotation here as back home—but I still perk up when I hear it; especially in relation to my retirement!), Airside pass processing, and most importantly, our Liquor card, which you need to purchase alcohol in the stores around here.

They also brought in a banker from HSBC (I forgot to ask him what HSBC stood for) and he opened accounts for us—we get a bit of a deal since Serco also uses HSBC and it makes it easier for Serco to get our pay and reimbursements to us. We also got ATM cards, a Mastercard, a Visa, and we get to set up free monthly money wires home. It all sounded pretty good.
A couple managers came in and gave us a rundown of the next couple months. They are a little behind in their training due to heavy use of the simulators getting ready to start split locals later this month (I don’t remember getting any simulator time at ATL when we split our locals?) Anyway, it works in our favor because our option for a week off is pushed back into the Xmas break—so looks like I will be home at least sometime around Xmas. Big Thumbs Up!
Next we had to go get a Temporary Dubai Driver’s License. Now, if you are just visiting Dubai on a tourist visa, you can just take your US drivers license and rent a car. But, since we are on a temporary work visa, we can’t rent a car until we have converted our US license to a Dubai license. And after we get permanent residency we will have to convert our temporary Dubai license to a permanent license. Make sense? Sounds like I’m going to need some more passport photos.

Thank goodness for Kiri, our family liason officer. First of all, I forgot my wallet at the villa, so three of us who needed to go to the Traffic Bureau hopped in a taxi back to the villa where Kiri picked us up. Then we went to the bureau which is like the DMV on steroids. We just got behind Kiri and followed her blocks thru the whole process. We each had a stack of 6-8 papers and photos, plus visas, passports, letters written in Arabic; then our number was called and we would sit in front of a very nice Emarati man or woman and smile and nod as they typed and poked around our papers. I kept waiting for something to go wrong, but it never did…until I looked at my receipt as I walked over to get my photo taken and I noticed my first name was Doland. It got fixed easily and I now have a pretty gold Dubai temporary Driver’s license.

The rest of the day, Rod and I drove around looking at different areas of the town. After getting stuck in several traffic snarls, I am redoubling my efforts to find a place with a 5-10 min commute to work. I will say there are alot of different nice areas of town---and alot of construction...everywhere! Tuesday we are going out for the day and I will see how many cranes I can photograph.