Nocturne
Vesper.
I also have a yearning to be truly free at last. To run away and care for absolutely nothing. (I thought I was the only one to thinking of thoughts like this....)
-
OK, it's on.
Any of you want to just dump it all and travel for a living?
- Thread starter MG113
- Start date
Architect
Professional INTP
- Local time
- Today 4:19 PM
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2010
- Messages
- 6,691
No interest. I've been fortunate enough to one, have a good software engineering job for 15 years which two, paid to send me around the world. Now business travel is different from pleasure travel. On the good side traveling for business is free. In my case I was taken care of, I was able to stay in very nice hotels, and spend as much as needed for food and entertainment. Additionally I was able to take my family on several trips on the company dime. On the negative side, you usually have to keep traveling to the same locations, often had to spend time with customers, and may not be going to the most interesting places. Again I was fortunate to be going to Asia and Europe, didn't have to meet customers and was going to laboratory to meet fellow engineers. Basically I was just working in a foreign country. This is very frequent, at one point I was traveling a week out of every month.
So I probably had the best situation you could have for business travel. What I discovered is that it's not as romantic as I thought it was. It's a good way to spend a lot of time accomplishing very little. Too much time needs to be spent managing food and transportation, whereas when I'm at home I have a streamlined so that I spend very little time in these activities. Most my time at home is spent doing the things that I like doing. Also you're always missing critical possessions. The biggest one being exercise equipment. It sounds romantic to be getting exercise by running along a canal in Tokyo, but is mostly just lonely.
So no, been there done that, it's not for me
So I probably had the best situation you could have for business travel. What I discovered is that it's not as romantic as I thought it was. It's a good way to spend a lot of time accomplishing very little. Too much time needs to be spent managing food and transportation, whereas when I'm at home I have a streamlined so that I spend very little time in these activities. Most my time at home is spent doing the things that I like doing. Also you're always missing critical possessions. The biggest one being exercise equipment. It sounds romantic to be getting exercise by running along a canal in Tokyo, but is mostly just lonely.
So no, been there done that, it's not for me
Gluon the Ferengi
Ferengi
- Local time
- Today 6:19 PM
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2009
- Messages
- 62
I've done the teaching in Korea thing before too.
I've found it attracts a frat crowd who've never moved beyond the college/high school social life.
If you don't fit in, you'll get ganged up on as in most social settings. You won't last.
Chances are, you'll only get paid once a month. The last few days before each payday are a tense showdown between you and your boss.
It takes some fortitude to grind those poor kids through the meat grinder.
And you're being watched on camera all the while for the slightest slip-up.
When you go into another country as a guest worker you can expect to be treated like Mexicans, Filipinos, and Indians are in the states.
It's very educational.
That said, Korea's an awesome country, but the hagwon business doesn't allow for that much exploring. My bosses actively disapproved of me exploring the country on weekends: My co-workers who lived next door would inform on me.
I would have to sneak out and if I was lucky, I would get Sundays to explore.
The time I managed to get outside of work made all the hardships worth it. By the time I left, I knew all the major markets and where to get stuff. Even the 6 year old ginseng was monumentally cheaper than in the states. I learned about things that the Western world has barely heard of or is just beginning to learn about.
I was discovering black garlic for instance right about the time it was first catching on with foodies and exotic chefs in the US.
Don't be too surprised if you end up having to work 12-16 hours a day. Count on plenty of paperwork, reports, grading, lesson planning after hours.
Going to Korea was cool, but don't get the idea it's a great place to flee. Especially for an INTP.
Hagwons expect their employees to be loud, super-social, and bubbly. That's the East Asian conception of how Westerners are supposed to behave. That's the personality type the hagwons believe is most likely to be a profitable hire.
Just as Asians in the US are caricatured as launderers, restaurant owners, and martial artists, an Anglospheric person can expect to regarded as a racial caricature in the East.
Furthermore, East Asian societies are all about social contacts. If you go places alone you won't be treated well, nor will you be able to be served in restaurants. In Korea, you don't usually find places by street address. It's assumed that if you have business somewhere, someone will have told you how to find it. You aren't a person in Korean society unless you're part of a group.
Hopefully I just got a bad hagwon but that's my experience.
I've found it attracts a frat crowd who've never moved beyond the college/high school social life.
If you don't fit in, you'll get ganged up on as in most social settings. You won't last.
Chances are, you'll only get paid once a month. The last few days before each payday are a tense showdown between you and your boss.
It takes some fortitude to grind those poor kids through the meat grinder.
And you're being watched on camera all the while for the slightest slip-up.
When you go into another country as a guest worker you can expect to be treated like Mexicans, Filipinos, and Indians are in the states.
It's very educational.
That said, Korea's an awesome country, but the hagwon business doesn't allow for that much exploring. My bosses actively disapproved of me exploring the country on weekends: My co-workers who lived next door would inform on me.
I would have to sneak out and if I was lucky, I would get Sundays to explore.
The time I managed to get outside of work made all the hardships worth it. By the time I left, I knew all the major markets and where to get stuff. Even the 6 year old ginseng was monumentally cheaper than in the states. I learned about things that the Western world has barely heard of or is just beginning to learn about.
I was discovering black garlic for instance right about the time it was first catching on with foodies and exotic chefs in the US.
Don't be too surprised if you end up having to work 12-16 hours a day. Count on plenty of paperwork, reports, grading, lesson planning after hours.
Going to Korea was cool, but don't get the idea it's a great place to flee. Especially for an INTP.
Hagwons expect their employees to be loud, super-social, and bubbly. That's the East Asian conception of how Westerners are supposed to behave. That's the personality type the hagwons believe is most likely to be a profitable hire.
Just as Asians in the US are caricatured as launderers, restaurant owners, and martial artists, an Anglospheric person can expect to regarded as a racial caricature in the East.
Furthermore, East Asian societies are all about social contacts. If you go places alone you won't be treated well, nor will you be able to be served in restaurants. In Korea, you don't usually find places by street address. It's assumed that if you have business somewhere, someone will have told you how to find it. You aren't a person in Korean society unless you're part of a group.
Hopefully I just got a bad hagwon but that's my experience.