Having recently returned from our holiday in Europe, I was reminded how ambivalent living in Riyadh can be. On one hand, we're spoiled by being surrounded by people doing things for us that I would've found straight up awkward in Europe, yet the quality of services can be so unpredictable!
These are the oddest things we had to get used to.
People doing the most basic things for you
Having someone pack your groceries and push the trolley to your car after shopping is completely normal here, but I have to admit it still makes me slightly uncomfortable. I'm a strong, independent woman, after all!
What I really enjoy though, is not having to get out of the car because there's someone whose job is to fill up the tank. Or not having to rely on Uber drivers who can be famously unfriendly on every continent, because I now have three reliable and friendly drivers on speed dial. Customer service in restaurants and stores has improved so much in just the short year we've been here and I love striking up a chat with servers and sales assistants everywhere I go.
I won't even get into how much we appreciate having access to affordable help – personal trainers, swimming lessons on site for the kids, and most importantly, the fantastic nannies helping to raise our children. Since we lived far away from our families for over a decade and had our kids during and shortly after Covid lockdowns, we didn't get to experience grandparents visiting regularly or coming to babysit. So having someone to ease the mental load when it comes to laundry, cooking and helping out with the children is priceless and we can't be thankful enough. These luxuries that we couldn't imagine prior to moving here are the norm for a lot of locals and many expats and they improve our quality of life immensely. We make sure not to take any of it for granted and are really grateful to be able to have access to this lifestyle.
One of the few things that slightly concern me about life here with young children is teaching them that this isn't how most of the rest of the world lives and that they should be independent, respectful, able and willing to participate in household chores and do their age appropriate tasks. Like every other parent, I guess? Montessori philosophy in early years education is a very popular buzzword used everywhere nowadays, and Riyadh is no exception. But it can look very different in practice for a variety of reasons – cultural differences, quality of training and education etc. I found it harder to keep up with our kids' eagerness to do purposeful learning when at three years old they already realise they can ASK for things to be done for them instead and some adults around them would happily oblige.
But don't expect to have your mail delivered on time...
I wanted to quit my nasty Amazon habit that only got worse over past few years, and I was finally forced to do so. Prime seems to be a waste of money, as it doesn't necessarily mean cheaper or faster delivery times. The variety and quality of products is also underwhelming. Everyone I spoke to has at least one horror story with deliveries. It doesn't stop most people from shopping online but we've decided that it isn't worth the hassle as most things we need are available in brick and mortar stores and anything that isn't, we can look for alternatives or have them shipped from Europe via large international companies such as DHL or UPS.
Smaller local shipping companies are public enemy #1 in our household. Unfortunately, more often than not our deliveries were late, we had orders returned unexpectedly or cancelled after weeks of waiting, leaving us without birthday presents for a kids' party and clothes that were paid for but never arrived. Getting refunds is also not as simple as back home, customer service can be unpredictable and the level of English is very varied which complicates and drags out these processes.
I love the idea of digitisation and in theory it's obviously very convenient and more cost effective for businesses, but the truth is that a lot of online services/apps simply don't work as smoothly as they should, and often there isn't an efficient alternative in place,
costing customers time and companies money.
As I said above, we've seen huge leaps and improvements in just one short year, so overall I'm optimistic that services will continue to improve and catch up to Western European standards eventually. The pace of development is unimaginable if you're not here to witness it, so it will probably happen rather sooner than later. Until then, I just call a driver to take me to a store, bank or hospital....
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