Best Timing to Come to Qatar for Work

Coming to work at Middle East.. ironically you need to have a good timing to come to work over here. Weird.. well I try my best to explain here.. it some sort of feng shui thing.... OK. there are several season in Middle East.... slow, normal and peak... well I am just joking there is no peak season...in middle east for now.. maybe got tension season due to the riot and war to be....

Anyway back to the topic,  throughout the year you can consider Middle East having normal season as everything running as normal pace except middle of year which is summer time and Ramadhan a.k.a slow season. So typically is start from June to September and also depend on when is the Ramadhan month. During the summer and Ramadhan people normal don't much work everything seem to be a standstill. Due to the heat many people took off and travel oversea for holidays and for Ramadhan most office work only half day so productivity is slow and it is very hard for you to get thing on hand when you need it really urgently.

OK there is pro and cons during this slow season. Let me start with the cons so you be more alert

CONS
- Like I said earlier productivity is slow so if you need some urgent things like approval, document you got to wait for you need to pre plan so it get approve such example is your annual leave.
- Getting government document is a pain during this time as many is away, so document like your working permit, driving license may take longer time and even difficult to obtain and this will make you frustrated.
- Conclusion is, it just make your life more difficult

PROS
- Due to the heat and due to a lot of people leaving the country for holiday, business is slow for the owner and so there come all the crazy sales. Sales in Qatar is different from Malaysia. Sales here is really SALES, unlike Malaysia most retail store mark up the price before they put up for sale.
- With the point I mentioned above, it is a good time to look for your accommodation, car, and shopping.

So timing is important, and also depends on your guts, because you need to serve 3 months notice period when you join a company so during probation you may have worries whether to commit to rent a house or buying a car as it is sometime unpredictable here. :) So I would suggest IF possible coming here during March and by that time your probation is over is the start of summer. If you came during summer it is advisable you look for apartment or house that accept monthly payment therefore you free yourself from a yearly contract and for the car you probably can get a rental one during your probation but then you need to go through the hassle of getting the license.