💬 My sponsor wouldn't release me for a better job

Last year I got an offer from another company in Jeddah. Better position, better pay, nothing shady about it. I told my sponsor politely. He smiled and said let me think about it. That was the last clear answer. For weeks every time I asked, there was a new reason. He was travelling. The manager was out. Next week. Meanwhile the new company kept calling and I kept saying I'm trying. They stopped waiting after a while. The hard part is that you can't push. Your residency is tied to the same man you're arguing with. So you keep smiling in the office and keep your voice soft. I did that for almost 2 months. A colleague told me his friend had the same thing. He waited until his contract period was done. I don't know what the rules say exactly. I only know what happened to me and the people I talk to. I've heard the system has improved on paper, with contracts and online complaints. Maybe that's true. In my office hardly anyone knows how to use any of it, including me. People are afraid to complain because they don't want to lose the job or the iqama. Rent doesn't wait. A man I know in Dammam gave up after 4 months of trying and just stayed where he was. I never got that job. The offer went to someone else after 3 months, and I'm still in the same office. Which is why I get annoyed when people say the new rules fixed everything. Maybe for some people they did. I'd like to hear from anyone who changed jobs recently. Did your sponsor make it easy, or did you have to wait? And how did you find out what you could do? I only learned from colleagues, never from an office.

My own transfer got blocked for nearly four months without any official reason given either, only found out later through a friend working in HR that my kafeel simply disliked losing an experienced worker right before a busy project deadline. Eventually resolved itself once the project finished and he stopped renewing the block, but those months of uncertainty were exhausting to sit through.

A friend of mine had almost the same situation in Dammam. His sponsor never said no, he just never said yes.