Robor, I appreciate your and Shue's posts about life and work in Doha. Hopefully Serco will improve your situations, the Approach team certainly has more than their share of work to deal with and the Tower surely is quite busy with their own set of issues.
My uncle and aunt spent 20 years in Saudi Arabia from 1968 to 1988; far less developed times and location in terms of technology and social media to keep in touch with families, but they managed, they all did, in fact I think they thrived with lifelong friendships. They also came out of there with financial stability for the rest of their lives.
Have times changed that much that people don't visit friends anymore? Have all the X-box, PS3, Facebook and the like driven people further apart than before? Instead of spending time with each other, it seems that families live in an electronic bubble these days.
I have lived in cities with populations from 25,000 to over 3,000,000. The smallest ones offered closer community feel and even though they had very little man-made attractions or malls, their natural locations gave us more things to do and places to hike to than a hundred Disneylands could.
I guess the bottom line is that it is not that bad, after all, you folks didn't leave two weeks after arrival, the salary sets up your family's security when all is done.
I would not mind going there at all, the long term advantages far outweigh the short term annoyances, in my opinion.
Last edited by LoserGill; 18th Mar 2013 at 21:30.