I 25F have been working at this company for 3 years. Almost a year ago, I was moved from my home country to Dubai. A little context: my home country recently went into the worst economic crisis and everyone's money was lost in the bank. So I didn't have family to back me up financially, and this company was my first ever job fresh out of university. They knew: 1. I didn't have money because of the shit salary I had and 2. that I had no bank account because of my country.
After moving, HR told me they keep me in studio until my visa is done because I'm not allowed to rent an apartment legally in Dubai without a Visa, meanwhile I couldn't pay for an airbnb because I didn't have a bank account (I also cant open a bank account without a visa here).
3 weeks in of me being in Dubai, my visa is still not done (it took 7 weeks), and HR had to continue paying for my house even though they stopped wanting to due to it taking longer than expected.
Another FYI: this company is the biggest media company in the MENA region and they were in charge of doing my visa, I wasn't the one doing it.
Anyway, after them changing their minds I would wake up every Sunday morning to a call telling me to leave the apartment immediately – so i'd have to call hr manager to sort it out (it was the person under him doing all this work). One time, my Manager was getting sick of HR doing this so he took matters into his own and called this HR woman, and told her “Hey, she's not doing okay because of all of these issues happening every Sunday” so HR looks at him, mad, and says “I don't get it, is this girl mentally unstable??? does she have issues??”. He had to explain to her that I am a very good worker, but the things she's putting me in are just difficult for anyone who just moved to a new country, and has no place to stay and the company is putting her in such situations even though they had promised on e-mail, something else.
This happened 8 months ago, but I just found out about it as this woman came back 8 months later asking for my salary to be deducted by more than half every month 🙂 [which won't be happening because she is no longer our department's HR thankfully].
I'm just very annoyed and hurt that this woman had the nerve to call me mentally unstable while she was the one putting me through all of this, and I just wish I could report her to someone but I can't – cause I feel like HR saying this about one of the employees should not be acceptable.