Why You Should Become an Expat (And Why You Shouldn’t), Part 2

Last week, I started to explain why you should (or shouldn’t) consider taking an expat contract. But, like always, I broke the rules of blogging by not keeping it short and sweet, so I only got through three points. Here are some more thoughts to consider before becoming an expat:

4) You Can Totally Show How Valuable You Are To Your Company

Your bosses wouldn’t have asked you to relocate if they didn’t think you had great value- or potential value- to the company. They’re sending you across the world to share your experience with others, to build your own knowledge and skillset so you’re an even bigger asset to the company when you return, or a combination of both. Either way, this is your chance to stand out from the crowd and kickstart your career. You’ll have the opportunity to accomplish great things to add to your already illustrious career, and you’ll be challenged to grow both in your professional and personal life.

Or, you’ll end up in a festering dead-end that will probably tank your career.

So, No?

Chances are you’ll be fine. But you need to recognise that things don’t always go the way you plan. Several things could happen to throw a big, fat monkey wrench directly into your face. Sometimes the local team resents the fact someone from the “mother ship” has been thrust upon them and does everything in their power to ensure you fail. Sometimes you have little to no support from the people who sent you over in the first place. Sometimes external factors can change, and you’re not important enough to be part of the new world order, so you get put in a corner and forgotten about. Sometimes you’ve been straight up lied to about what your position will entail, and you’ll have little recourse to show your stuff. And then you’ll realise you were much better off where you were, and the company has spent all this money on you only to watch you crash and burn, sewering your hopes of having any sort of meaningful role in the company when you get back. And you already left your old position, so you can’t go back to that either.

Your new boss may or may not be this.

What I’m saying here is, taking the contract could mean you’ll be starting from square one at a new company upon your return.

None of those things will likely happen to you. Or they all might happen at once. Just be aware of the fact that there’s no guarantee this will be a golden ticket for you. It might be nothing better than a ticket to a Nickelback concert. In the nosebleeds. And you’re sitting next to the morbidly obese guy who hasn’t showered in weeks and keeps spilling his beer on you and nudging you with his greasy elbows, yelling “Did you hear THAT???” every time the kazoo player has a solo. Or whatever. I don’t listen to Nickelback.

But I AM an expat, and I’m always aware that there’s a risk involved in my position. Is it worth it? Definitely. Will it be for you? Maybe definitely.

5) You Get To Meet All Kinds Of Awesome People

Being an expat is like being on spring break. Except you’re not on vacation. And you’re not drunk all the time. And you mostly keep your clothes on in business situations. And you had to bring your kids with you.

OK, being an expat is NOTHING like being on spring break. But it IS exciting. I have some great friends back at home. And I’ve also made some great friends here. If you’re in another country, having an accent is dope. People naturally want to talk to you and have a ton of questions about where you came from. In my case, people usually ask what the beaches are like in Australia. Or about Irish beer. Or how I feel about leaving the UK. It turns out South Africans are some of the WORST accent identifiers on the planet. They do sometimes guess I’m from the United States, but not as often as you’d think. When I tell them I’m from Canada, they usually nod and ask if I voted for Trump and if I miss America. Whatever- that’s not my point.

My point is, if you’re an expat, it’s ridiculously easy to meet people. Don’t get discouraged if everyone you work with at your new office is a window-licking turd sprinkler. You’ll have no problems meeting people outside of work. If you’re anything like us, your social life will actually be much busier in your new home than at home home.

And you’ll also have moments of crippling isolation when you question every single life choice that led you to sign that dang contract.

So, No?

Ever hear the expression “There’s no place like wherever Keira Knightley took her last bath?” Probably not, because I just coined it now. Feel free to make it popular. But you HAVE probably heard “There’s no place like home.” And there’s a reason for that. People who have left home sometimes really miss it. To put this in perspective, even people from Toronto who have suffered through years of abuse from the most awful and hated team in the NHL, the Maple Leafs, sometimes want to go home. I mean, not often, because Toronto is where everything good in the world goes to die, but sometimes.

You’ll miss your family (or some of them). You’ll miss your old colleagues. Especially if your new ones suck. You’ll miss your favourite food, your old neighbourhood, and your friends. It might not happen often, but you’ll have your moments where you feel removed from everything you know and love. You’ve never felt loneliness like you will when you’re thousands of kilometres from home and have no way of getting there.

I definitely don’t miss the scenery back home at all.

What I’m saying here is your experience as an expat will be much more pleasant and rewarding if you’re a certified sociopath who has no ties to anyone or anything.

6) You’ll Gain A New Perspective

One thing that will certainly happen when you live in a new country is that you’ll gain a whole new appreciation for things. We all know Staci. Staci went travelling right after she realised she didn’t want to be constrained by “the man” in a soulless education system and even more soulless job. So she went to Thailand or India or something and came back a better person, full of wisdom and stories about how literally every conversation reminds her of something she discovered about herself on her travels. Staci is an insufferable nincomboob who nobody wants to be around, and it turns out she was just too much of a brainless idiot to succeed in university. Don’t be like Staci.

But you WILL experience your surroundings from a whole new perspective. We vacationed in South Africa ten years ago, and we thought it was an amazing, wonderful country. Now that we live here, we’re even MORE convinced that it’s an amazing, wonderful country. It’s a diverse place filled with rich cultural backgrounds. The more time I spend here, the more I appreciate life.

But I also get to see the not so awesome things, like crushing poverty, systematic oppression, and crime.

So, No?

Depending on where your assignment is, you may or may not see truly awful things on a daily basis. Everyone knows the history of South Africa. It isn’t pretty. And the after effects are far from being gone. Two of my colleagues from work (at just one office) were held up last week. One at an ATM, and one at a vacation retreat, where he was shot at, tied up, and robbed. You wanna talk about gaining a new perspective…

If you aren’t generally a person who exudes bucketloads of optimism, maybe being an expat isn’t for you. Cause there are times when you’re going to have to work at staying positive. It won’t always be terrible, but chances are very high that you’ll see terrible things. I don’t know where you are, but I’m in a country that does crime as well as Kim Kardashian does at having no talent (though I’ve talked before about how crime here isn’t THAT bad from an expat’s perspective). If you don’t want to deal with the bad along with the good, just stay home. Cause bad exists.

I’m very optimistic the food here will give me debilitating diarrhea.

But through it all, people rise up and persevere. All of this makes me thankful for everything I have back in Canada and for the opportunity to live and work in South Africa.

Are 6 reasons to become (or not become) an expat enough? Probably not. I might add to this another time. What do YOU think? Is being an expat worth it? Why? Why not?

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