Re: Starting over
Webmaster: HombrePosted by Catocony on December 15, 2003 - 10:43 am
In Reply to: Re: Starting over posted by Godfather on December 15, 2003 - 10:14 am
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The goal for anyone who wants to leave the US should be to simply work as an expat. Now, when I say simply it does not mean that good expat jobs are easy to find. What I mean is the goal itself is simply defined - work for a US company that does business outside the US and will pay you to live there to work for them. There are two major ways to accomplish this - work for a commercial multinational or work for/with the US government. Now, most people think that commercial multinationals only move managers and specialists (like oilfield services workers) but quite a few of those jobs are sales/marketing/engineering support, things along those lines. As far as Federal and Federal-related work, that's how I spent most of the mid to late 90's rolling through Europe, Central America, East Asia and the Middle East. It is worth looking into. I wasn't even working for the government - I was doing technical sales work for an IT vendor, so best of both worlds there, good pay, short hours, plenty of free meals and you're still under the US bubble, so to speak. When I mean bubble, I mean having SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement), having a mailbox on a US military base, being able to use commissaries, Class Sixes, getting cheap gas, ease of getting a residency visa, etc. For me, the biggest pain of living abroad was mail - I still wanted to get my magazines in a timely manner, I needed to easily pay my credit cards, etc. Sometimes, it's nice to just hang out in a small piece of America. Advantages of living as an expat - well, if you can swing it, you should have free lodging (usually a furnished apartment with everything provided), free car lease (I had a Daewoo, a BMW and a Nissan/Infinity in my 3 spots), a monthly stipend or per diem for food and incidentals (mine was like $500 per month), a good insurance policy, some legal council (you will surprised how often this is needed!), cell phones, calling card, etc etc. The trick is, at least for field sales/support types, is that you don't touch your base pay and commission/bonus - that goes right into your investment accounts. I was even saving some money off of my expenses, since you eat half your meals with customers and those you expense seperately so it doesn't come out of your per diem/monthly (the awesome concept of double-dipping that I so love - getting paid to eat nice meals that you don't pay for!). Basically, you live like a king and don't spend a dime of your own money, while raking in the dough. Now, like most guys, I grew tired of it after a couple of years, but I recommend anyone with dreams of moving abroad to look into this. South America is tough because there is little Federal presence, but Europe, Japan, Korea and spots in the Middle East are almost always available for a techie or specialist who wants to see the world.
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