Working in Saudi Arabia

"And in the Middle East, they came to our place, came to our laboratory, and we talked to them and tell them what we were doing…and someone in the Middle East bought a license from Union Carbide. And they found out that they really didn’t know how to do these things, that they weren’t learning as fast as they wanted to. And they asked me one day, they said, 'When you retire, would you come and work for us?' I said, 'Yes.' So I retired and three weeks later, I went to work for them in Saudi Arabia. I stayed there…6 years, I guess.

It’s very different, the culture is different, the people are different. The…there’s a strong separation of the…men and women. In our plant, in our business, there was not a single woman, no—no women secretaries, no women cooks—nothing but men. So it’s quite different. Of course, the religion is different. Christianity is not the religion of choice. The people are the same, they’re very nice people. I got to know them, I got to like them. And I stayed there 6 years."

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