Girls Rock |

Hey Everyone,

For the last two days my training has focused on something called (QHSE, Quality Health Safety Environment). One of the most interesting parts of our training is understanding risks that an employee might face across different countries. My employment status is called international mobile, which means I can be sent temporarily to other countries around the world at any point when there is need for my specialty. Therefore, special attention was given during our training to understand health risks and hazards in different parts of the world (ie, AID/HIV, malaria, etc).

One of the biggest debates in our class this week was the issue of emergency assistance in Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, it is considered offensive for a man to touch a women if they are not your wife. Due to this cultural norm, many conflicts have arisen after women have needed immediate medical assistance. There have been cases where women have been injured or died because their husband would not allow a male medic to treat her. Some foreigners that ignore these cultural norms have been stoned and/or beaten to death for ignoring this symbol of respect. There are about 15-20 people from Saudi in the class, so of course there was yelling and screaming over what is acceptable and what is not. Some said “yes” in this particular case a women should be able to receive medical attention but other said “no!” emphatically. This is just one of the many discussions that we had in class for our QHSE training. A secondary topic that stood out to me is this issue of driving. Many employees in my position will be required to drive to different locations to complete their work. The number one cause of injury or work related deaths are car accidents that result from fatigue or non-compliance with company rules (i.e, speeding, seat belt usage, cell phone/texting, etc). The statistic was something like 33% of incidents are vehicle related. Here is a link to the video my instructor showed. He played it in slow motion so we could hear the thump at the end of the film: https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151193694782657&notif_t=video_processed

They tell us all these scary statistics and yet we are still sitting in the room, both men and women. I have had many comments from males in my course that some of the rig sites are not proper for a women and that we deserve better conditions. One guy even told me I deserve more luggage at the airport because I am am a woman lol….. I am very impressed with all these women in my course. They are fearless. One of the girls I have become very good friends with is about 95 pounds and 5’2. Her name is Celine. She is always talking about how Engineers should rule the world because we use proven analysis to validate our decisions. She is tiny but feisty and confident about our future success in the company. There are 65 students in my OFS-1 Course. About 15 of them are females. There are 3 from India, 3 from Saudi Arabia, 2 from the US, 1 from Jordan, 1 from Benin, 1 from the UK, 2 from Oman and 2 from Australia. That’s about 23 % ! I was very excited to see all these women. Many of them are very shy, especially the women from Saudi Arabia. The women from Oman and Saudi really like my hair. I have had several of my colleagues ask to touch my hair.

The people I have spent my last week with are all very fascinating in their on way. I have heard so many stories that I want to share on my blog about the differences in culture but it would probably take me 10 blog posts to get through all the things that my coworkers have shared. We are now done with our course and we are off to our assigned countries. I am headed to Doha today. All of us celebrated yesterday by going to Ferrari World where I road the fasted roller coaster in the world. We later had dinner at a Belgian cafe and said our goodbyes. We are all hoping to stay in touch as we embark on our journeys and new jobs. Many have opened their homes to the class to come for a visit so that we can learn about their home and culture.