I've been reading this thread with interest as my start date is fast approaching.
For weeks, I have been requesting information on our accommodation from the appointed HR co-ordinator (bless her), with the occasional nudge to an HR Manager when things did not move onwards.
I am bound for a management desk in Engineering, and have been told by HR today that ALL managerial, pilots,and engineering staff are destined for Meydan at some point.
In fact, after some drum beating, my initial request of furnished company accommodation has now been confirmed, though initially we were told that no furnished properties were available. So here we are, seeking insight via Google about Meydan, especially given that we have a villa number (its in the low 100s), but apart from a drive by video, some pics taken outside the fence, and a contractors aircon video, there is nothing, nowt, no insight, just what I find on here.
Now given that I specifically requested that a garden was a MUST (2 dogs, both bonkers), being packed in like Glenrycks finest (that's Pilchards or Sardines to the uninitiated) with a space out back that is too small to swing a dead rat has gone down like the proverbial cold cup of sick, and we haven't told the puppies, yet! Also on the "wish list" was a place in DSO, as I was briefed by a double decker captain (a reformed engineer colleague from back in the days at BHX) that DSO was a nice place to live. Of course that too has gone by the wayside now, but I am still contemplating a response to HR about Meydan and its rat run garden. I do have 2 weeks in a high rise on Sheikh Zayed Road to look forward to when I arrive, and have been promised access to the accommodation before the move date, so I suppose that may be my last opportunity to vent my spleen. Not sure if histrionics and a fainting episode will work for me, if I am completely honest. Never mind the 3 month probation period! But that would be better than waiting for my better half to arrive and watching her tear a few new orifices in the Accommodation Department people.....
Now while I smoulder, and wifey fumes, the packing continues, or at least the unpacking of the attics, and discarding of various bits and pieces. Luckily for me, the girls (and boys) won't be coming over until August, so all I have to do is get my feet under the table, try not to upset too many people, book a school place for the Princess, and see what's what out at Vaseline Villas. No wait, that was somewhere else. Oh never mind, the name game could run and run, and Stalag Luft III will still be there next month. Probably.