In April 2010, I shipped all my furniture and flew to Syria carrying with me all lots of hope and fears of the future.
In Damascus, we rented a specious apartment not too far from my family’s repainted and furnished it so it can become our new home.
I immediately notified my potential employer to notify them that I’m ready to join, but unfortunately, they said that vacancy had gone to someone else. No problem, I still have many other doors to knock. I had several meetings with several companies but no real opportunity at that time.
After 3 months, I received a call from the same company I supposed to work for at the biggening. They sent me an employment offer as a project manager but with a salary less than half of what was agreed. Their reason was that I have no experience in their system as they are specialized in building Aluminium and glass façade, that company was very special comparing to almost all businesses in Syria, so I have decided to work with them but on one condition which is; that I work for 3 months on that salary and after 3 months they meet and evaluate my performance, if it was not more than expectation I will quit otherwise they give me the right salary.
I enjoyed working with them they were very good people and had established very strong relationship with my colleagues.
My family enjoyed the life in Syria close to our big families, I was not so happy with all the corruption there but trying to reintegrate.
In August 2010, I received a job offer from Qatar (it was that Qatari company who received my resume in January 2010). We had several rounds of discussions and then one of the directors came to Syria to interview me.
After some negotiations, we signed the job offer. My wife was pregnant and due for delivery on October, so I confirmed that by end of October I can fly to Qatar and join the new company.
In September 2010, just few days before my 3 months performance review I submitted my resignation, they tried to keep me and offered good remuneration, but my move was not only because of the money, it was mainly because I could not tolerate and integrate.
My second child a boy was born 10th of October; I spent with my family and my newly born boy 20 days and then flew to Qatar.