Are our expectation simply too high?

To put things into perspective Saudi Arabia only really entered the "modern" world when oil was discovered 80 odd years ago.

Since then they have been forced to transform from basically a tribal, bedouin way of life to one that conforms with our own. This is probably a lot to expect. We have had a couple of thousand years to get to this stage of doing business and interacting with peoples of other lands (for better or worse). Maybe at the core of our frustrations with Saudi is the fact that our expectations are simply too high. And unrightly so!

This does not diminish from the fact that doing business here is challenging to say the least. But then we do have the option to go do business elsewhere don't we? Maybe it is simply a case of "grin and bear it".

This post is not meant to be construed in any way negative. It is simply an acknowledgement that as outsiders we have to understand and adapt in the same way we expect Saudi's to do.