How do people get into jobs that they travel with?
Discussion
Not quite international traveller here but I certainly echo a lot of the points made regarding travel. Been working post uni/gap year for 10years in IT now, first few years were spent on assignment Monday to Friday in hotels, really enjoyed it as I was single, younger and going out every night plus mainly on expenses. Now a family man and father of two amazing little girls, I've been home based for a few years and travel in only when required (mainly UK) and rarely overnight. It works really well as I have seen my little ones grow up and also been able to get a nice V8 to drive due to low miles for work.
All depends on situation and where you are in life. Perhaps when I'm older and girls are teenagers I may move into move into a role requiring travel. Then I'd be looking back into the pre-sales and consultancy spaces.
All depends on situation and where you are in life. Perhaps when I'm older and girls are teenagers I may move into move into a role requiring travel. Then I'd be looking back into the pre-sales and consultancy spaces.
Again agree with all the be careful what you wish for warnings.
Years of up at 3am Monday in order to guarantee being airside at LHR by 5:30ish, a week of work, late nights, watching some carp on a foreign tv station where you don't know what's on what channel, back up the M40 around midnight Friday. You can stuff it.
Can think of only three trips in all those years where there was significant out time. Australia for several weeks. One weekend in Perth at the same time as the round of the WRC. Next weekend was at a loose end on the Gold coast. Couple of trips in USA where rather than take an internal flights on the Friday pm to next week's location we turned it into a road trip. Even long spells in Florida , including Orlando and KSC turn out to be just work.
Sorry for negativity but business travel looks exciting to those not doing it.
Years of up at 3am Monday in order to guarantee being airside at LHR by 5:30ish, a week of work, late nights, watching some carp on a foreign tv station where you don't know what's on what channel, back up the M40 around midnight Friday. You can stuff it.
Can think of only three trips in all those years where there was significant out time. Australia for several weeks. One weekend in Perth at the same time as the round of the WRC. Next weekend was at a loose end on the Gold coast. Couple of trips in USA where rather than take an internal flights on the Friday pm to next week's location we turned it into a road trip. Even long spells in Florida , including Orlando and KSC turn out to be just work.
Sorry for negativity but business travel looks exciting to those not doing it.
Agree with all of the above it's good to begin with then becomes a ballache, also you can end up turning up to work on a Monday morning to be told to go home and pack a bag as the taxi will pick you up to take you to the airport that afternoon. The wife wasn't overly impressed with that one!
I've eaten steak and drunk beer in many different countries, I've also sat in taxis, hire cars and departure lounges in the same number it's still not as good as being at home.
The one really good thing was when work sent me for 3 months to Japan, cash living allowances and crazy overtime meant I spent every weekend travelling around the country including spending a few days snowboarding. It's a good feeling standing on top of a mountain admiring the view safe in the knowledge work have paid for it.
I've eaten steak and drunk beer in many different countries, I've also sat in taxis, hire cars and departure lounges in the same number it's still not as good as being at home.
The one really good thing was when work sent me for 3 months to Japan, cash living allowances and crazy overtime meant I spent every weekend travelling around the country including spending a few days snowboarding. It's a good feeling standing on top of a mountain admiring the view safe in the knowledge work have paid for it.
crofty1984 said:
That sounds like the right way to do it. Plenty of time to see/do stuff in your new place, meet new people (that you don't work with) and no Mrs at home
i met a rather lovely long haired spanish speaking dictionary early on in this trip and have been spending a lot of time with her so yes, sometimes it does seem worthwhile!pretty sweet gig so far all round. so much so i will likely take my leave rotation here and go exploring.
I started reading this thread generally agreeing with the 'ballsache' sentiment but then I thought back over my twenty plus years of regular business travel.
When I first started Business Class didn't exist and even Terminal 4 at LHR hadn't been built and airport procedures were very simple.
My trips varied from 2-6 weeks at a time to the ME, Asia, South America and Africa in the early days to overnighters in Europe more latterly.
I did come to resent time away from my family, the increased aggro (read as security) at airports and all the other negatives mentioned above but, most importantly, the experiences (even those of airport/boring office/hotel/airport) have left a legacy that I will never regret.
So if you get the chance do it but go in eyes open that at some point you will want to stop.
Still can't forget the good old days when, in Dubai, the hotel bellboy would take my bags over to the airport to check me in for SQ22 to LHR at 2.30am whilst I sat in the nightclub having a cocktail or two. At 2am he'd come and get me, give me my boarding card, drive me to the airport. I'd just stroll through immigration and get on the last bus to the aircraft, climb the steps to the Bigtop and be asleep before the wheels had left the ground! Try doing that today
When I first started Business Class didn't exist and even Terminal 4 at LHR hadn't been built and airport procedures were very simple.
My trips varied from 2-6 weeks at a time to the ME, Asia, South America and Africa in the early days to overnighters in Europe more latterly.
I did come to resent time away from my family, the increased aggro (read as security) at airports and all the other negatives mentioned above but, most importantly, the experiences (even those of airport/boring office/hotel/airport) have left a legacy that I will never regret.
So if you get the chance do it but go in eyes open that at some point you will want to stop.
Still can't forget the good old days when, in Dubai, the hotel bellboy would take my bags over to the airport to check me in for SQ22 to LHR at 2.30am whilst I sat in the nightclub having a cocktail or two. At 2am he'd come and get me, give me my boarding card, drive me to the airport. I'd just stroll through immigration and get on the last bus to the aircraft, climb the steps to the Bigtop and be asleep before the wheels had left the ground! Try doing that today
I've just finished four months of a project that involved a lot of weekend travel and a return flight every week (half of which were long-haul).
Sure it was good fun, but by the end I was glad for a break from the travel. I hadn't had a weekend without a flight for the whole thing.
On the upside, the airmiles are enough for 3 first-class long-haul return trips, and I've got enough hotel points for a week in a five-star resort somewhere...
Sure it was good fun, but by the end I was glad for a break from the travel. I hadn't had a weekend without a flight for the whole thing.
On the upside, the airmiles are enough for 3 first-class long-haul return trips, and I've got enough hotel points for a week in a five-star resort somewhere...
brickwall said:
On the upside, the airmiles are enough for 3 first-class long-haul return trips, and I've got enough hotel points for a week in a five-star resort somewhere...
This is the ultimate irony of the business traveller. You spend months taking flights and staying away from home, and pretty much everybody becomes obsessed with tier points and frequent traveller status. All for what? So that you can spend them on more flights and more time away from home. It's madness I tell you!The day, a couple of years after I stopped the Monday-Friday long-distance commute, when I finally lost any kind of hotel or airline status was a real day of celebration for me
deckster said:
when I finally lost any kind of hotel or airline status was a real day of celebration for me
Same here, I lost BA Gold one year (got it back following year) and while I was disappointed to lose a few perks, I saw that the other side of the coin was that I hadn't flown quite as much as previous years I will lose it next year and probably will lose silver the year after that - yey I spend at least half the year away from home, most likely out the country. And unlike most on here I actually love it. I have a military background however and I think it probably put me in that mindset. I now have a young family and have tried taking a job at home but hated it to the point I went back on the road again, it can be a strain on family life to be honest but I would struggle with a 9-5 job as I start to get itchy feet and become very bored of the routine. In my field (engineering) I also get paid a lot more for worldwide travel so it makes sense that way.
Largely depends what type of person you are I think.
Largely depends what type of person you are I think.
deckster said:
brickwall said:
On the upside, the airmiles are enough for 3 first-class long-haul return trips, and I've got enough hotel points for a week in a five-star resort somewhere...
This is the ultimate irony of the business traveller. You spend months taking flights and staying away from home, and pretty much everybody becomes obsessed with tier points and frequent traveller status. All for what? So that you can spend them on more flights and more time away from home. It's madness I tell you!The day, a couple of years after I stopped the Monday-Friday long-distance commute, when I finally lost any kind of hotel or airline status was a real day of celebration for me
But I still enjoy travelling for fun. If I have to travel for work, it is a pleasant side benefit (to what is fundamentally a quite annoying activity) to be able to go on much more luxurious holidays than I could otherwise afford.
Next year I'm going on holiday to Kenya up the front of the plane, something I would never dream of paying for myself, but nice nonetheless.
As mentioned in another thread I am the Global Talent Acquisition Manager for a FTSE 100 company. A large proportion of my head office staff travel with work but we do our best to make it as comfortable possible. Any flight over four hours is business or first class and the hotels tend to be the best available. We also give our people flexibility for rest time and site seeing etc.
As a matter of fact I am currently looking to recruit an Global IT Auditor role that will require 60% of your time to be spent travelling across the 50 countries we currently service. With a cash package of up to £130,000 + pensions etc. I think it’s a pretty good deal. If anyone is interested feel free to PM me
As a matter of fact I am currently looking to recruit an Global IT Auditor role that will require 60% of your time to be spent travelling across the 50 countries we currently service. With a cash package of up to £130,000 + pensions etc. I think it’s a pretty good deal. If anyone is interested feel free to PM me
As others have stated - be careful what you wish for.
It sounds fantastic jetting off all over the place, seeing far away places all at someone else’s expense. To some at work (and home) it sounds like you are on holiday all the time. I used to reckon on 1 out of 5 jollies were great, the rest were really hard work.
Be aware that some work travel is very different than others. For example…
For some
Where I used to work, the Far East sales guy would take 6-8 weeks to plan his 3 week jaunt around the region, with all his appointments laid out on what day, making sure he had at least one “golf day” a week sorted. He was a handsome chap, so he had his ex-pat female acquaintances to “visit” almost at each spot. Nearly all his meetings were in air conditioned offices, nice coffee laid on, and knockout food and drink in the evening. he thought it was great…
For me
A troublesome ship fitting - hence call in the expert – me (really?) - would be required at “sometime in the next few weeks”. With no news from the customer and them proving difficult to chase or non-committal, no plans can be made. Then, usually on Thursday afternoon, we would hear of the requirement for someone to go and supervise in South Korea- say, arriving Monday. This always proved difficult. The remainder of Thursday was spent organising flights (OK - a business travel agency sorted that), contact the agent to organise the 3 hour taxi ride and/or a hotel. Easy enough. Get some currency – the company proved useless at doing this, so another task at the airport. The flight I usually went on was Sunday at 10:50, so that’s Saturday evening gone, all of Sunday, and Monday just disappears with time zones and travel. Wednesday meant just trying to get your body in their time zone. You would be there for a minimum of 7 days, sometimes 10, so that’s at least another weekend gone. And all that social stuff you had planned, with your recently acquired partner, who now informs you that she isn’t willing to tolerate this part of the relationship… that’s gone too. Most trips were a minimum of 65 hours a week, but most were 90 hours. Yes we got extra money for it, but was it worth it? For me - that’s one of the main reasons why I left.
The above paragraph was as regular as clockwork for me, every 6 weeks - this travel would happen as a minimum. Some 4 day trips were 19 days in reality.
You tire of it REALLY quickly.
There were some good jollies including chartered helicopters just for me, swimming with the dolphins on Easter Sunday in the Bahamas, sitting right at the front of the jumbo, but they weren’t good enough to make up for the hard-work ones. Especially with the effect on your life outside work.
It sounds fantastic jetting off all over the place, seeing far away places all at someone else’s expense. To some at work (and home) it sounds like you are on holiday all the time. I used to reckon on 1 out of 5 jollies were great, the rest were really hard work.
Be aware that some work travel is very different than others. For example…
For some
Where I used to work, the Far East sales guy would take 6-8 weeks to plan his 3 week jaunt around the region, with all his appointments laid out on what day, making sure he had at least one “golf day” a week sorted. He was a handsome chap, so he had his ex-pat female acquaintances to “visit” almost at each spot. Nearly all his meetings were in air conditioned offices, nice coffee laid on, and knockout food and drink in the evening. he thought it was great…
For me
A troublesome ship fitting - hence call in the expert – me (really?) - would be required at “sometime in the next few weeks”. With no news from the customer and them proving difficult to chase or non-committal, no plans can be made. Then, usually on Thursday afternoon, we would hear of the requirement for someone to go and supervise in South Korea- say, arriving Monday. This always proved difficult. The remainder of Thursday was spent organising flights (OK - a business travel agency sorted that), contact the agent to organise the 3 hour taxi ride and/or a hotel. Easy enough. Get some currency – the company proved useless at doing this, so another task at the airport. The flight I usually went on was Sunday at 10:50, so that’s Saturday evening gone, all of Sunday, and Monday just disappears with time zones and travel. Wednesday meant just trying to get your body in their time zone. You would be there for a minimum of 7 days, sometimes 10, so that’s at least another weekend gone. And all that social stuff you had planned, with your recently acquired partner, who now informs you that she isn’t willing to tolerate this part of the relationship… that’s gone too. Most trips were a minimum of 65 hours a week, but most were 90 hours. Yes we got extra money for it, but was it worth it? For me - that’s one of the main reasons why I left.
The above paragraph was as regular as clockwork for me, every 6 weeks - this travel would happen as a minimum. Some 4 day trips were 19 days in reality.
You tire of it REALLY quickly.
There were some good jollies including chartered helicopters just for me, swimming with the dolphins on Easter Sunday in the Bahamas, sitting right at the front of the jumbo, but they weren’t good enough to make up for the hard-work ones. Especially with the effect on your life outside work.
I don't think this thread is going the way the OP expected.Another angle - start contracting. PIck up work in foreign cities. Less travel and more time to experience the places. Sure, you won't have as many pins in maps, but at least you will have seen more than an airport lounge and a chain hotel.
Streetrod said:
Any flight over four hours is business or first class and the hotels tend to be the best available.
Lucky you (or them), I work for an international (american) company and all travel is economy, including europe to australia !Since most of the flying is done in the US or internal to continents for sales, those that travel intercontinental have to suffer the same economy class rules.
Hotels on the other hand are almost always 5* (Westin, Intercontinental, Hilton, etc...)
LimaDelta said:
I don't think this thread is going the way the OP expected.Streetrod said:
As mentioned in another thread I am the Global Talent Acquisition Manager for a FTSE 100 company. A large proportion of my head office staff travel with work but we do our best to make it as comfortable possible. Any flight over four hours is business or first class and the hotels tend to be the best available. We also give our people flexibility for rest time and site seeing etc.
I'm lucky with this too. My company prioritise productivity over expense cost, because they (rightly) deem people's time to be the biggest cost of all. Hence we always fly business if it's for front-office work, and hotels tend to be big-name 5-star places. The downside is you're expected to take flights that minimise lost time (overnighters or weekends for long-haul, early morning/late evening for short haul), and you tend to be working at every possible moment in between.
I tended to fall in to jobs with travel - also in IT. I started travelling in internal IT roles, then doing office fit-outs, then IT management with a distributed team. Now I run a small software company with customers all over the world, so I pretty much choose when and where I go, although it has to be the most cost-effective way rather than the most comfortable. Product roles got me travelling too as I launched new products in multiple markets.
Best bit for me was working for US companies, visiting a few times a year. I made some long-term friendships, got lots of miles on one airline and fell in love with the San Francisco area. Worst time is lots of short-haul travel visiting European customers. Nowadays, it's all on budget airlines so no miles, small seats with no recline and less-than-great schedules. A three day trip can lose most of a week - for example, I'm in Israel today. I had to get an early night on Sunday, up at 3:30 on Monday to get the Easyjet from Luton at 7. Sit in a torture device for 5 hours, wait at the airport for my ride for almost an hour, sit in meetings hoping to get a coffee at some point (the people one meets often don't realise one has been awake for 11 hours already at that point), dinner with more work talk and bed at 11 local time. Two more days of meetings, waking up at stupid times - I woke up at about 5am local (3am UK) for some reason - then 3 hours check in due to more security and 5 hours in the torture chamber, then find the car and an hour home.
What nobody ever says is that the people in the office "back home" still expect email to be answered, IM to be responded to, proposals to be written and so on, regardless of the fact that you're knackered, in constant meetings (since that was the point of the trip) and have personal stuff to catch up on when you get home.
OP, that's a 3 day trip with a 2 hour time difference. Do the same to Japan (I did 3 days), Salt Lake City (3 days, stayed over a Saturday to reduce flight costs and got ill so just did work/sleep) and it gets a bit old.
However, the upside is working with new cultures, people I meet are often very grateful that someone from "head office" is taking them seriously, you get to see some great places - just through a taxi window - and, frankly, it's better than being stuck in the same office every day.
Best bit for me was working for US companies, visiting a few times a year. I made some long-term friendships, got lots of miles on one airline and fell in love with the San Francisco area. Worst time is lots of short-haul travel visiting European customers. Nowadays, it's all on budget airlines so no miles, small seats with no recline and less-than-great schedules. A three day trip can lose most of a week - for example, I'm in Israel today. I had to get an early night on Sunday, up at 3:30 on Monday to get the Easyjet from Luton at 7. Sit in a torture device for 5 hours, wait at the airport for my ride for almost an hour, sit in meetings hoping to get a coffee at some point (the people one meets often don't realise one has been awake for 11 hours already at that point), dinner with more work talk and bed at 11 local time. Two more days of meetings, waking up at stupid times - I woke up at about 5am local (3am UK) for some reason - then 3 hours check in due to more security and 5 hours in the torture chamber, then find the car and an hour home.
What nobody ever says is that the people in the office "back home" still expect email to be answered, IM to be responded to, proposals to be written and so on, regardless of the fact that you're knackered, in constant meetings (since that was the point of the trip) and have personal stuff to catch up on when you get home.
OP, that's a 3 day trip with a 2 hour time difference. Do the same to Japan (I did 3 days), Salt Lake City (3 days, stayed over a Saturday to reduce flight costs and got ill so just did work/sleep) and it gets a bit old.
However, the upside is working with new cultures, people I meet are often very grateful that someone from "head office" is taking them seriously, you get to see some great places - just through a taxi window - and, frankly, it's better than being stuck in the same office every day.
Other side of the coin (there's always one...)
Back in the 80s, when I was a boy our neighbours daughter worked for a holiday company, Her job was to travel to holiday resorts, time herself walking to the beach, shops etc. Use and enjoy the facilities then write a few words for their holiday brochure.
For a young person with no ties, I cannot think of a better "job". Even F1 drivers have to work harder..
Back in the 80s, when I was a boy our neighbours daughter worked for a holiday company, Her job was to travel to holiday resorts, time herself walking to the beach, shops etc. Use and enjoy the facilities then write a few words for their holiday brochure.
For a young person with no ties, I cannot think of a better "job". Even F1 drivers have to work harder..
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