Lost my Dubai gig before I got there last November...took 7 months to find a job (while blowing my savings on caiparinhas on a Brazilian beach)...finally ended up in (uggh) the Caribbean, again.

So, anyone else get exiled from the US, like me due to the economy?

I'mz working in Hell these days.

selling shoes and dog shampoo

I think I would rather be exiled from the US but Europe won't take me. :(

I have a good job in the service automotive industry that pays really well... but it is an extremely part time gig.

I make shit-is-bananas per hour but I only work two hours a week.

lovely louisville in the fall:

I miss the Fall. It's always too hot here.

link

Orochi: "I make shit-is-bananas per hour "

Best quote

'finally ended up in (uggh) the Caribbean???' Are you being Serious?

I used to work there till March this year, best place in the world!!! I'm working in Perth now, shit loads of work on, but hate the place. All I dream about is moving back the West Indies.

i'm still in NL, been here 7 years. not the best situation now, but hey we'll survive. scotty - i feel your pain, perth is one hellva dull place!

In Los Angeles, teaching urban planning to undergrads... molding those young minds to value good design.

(Steven, beautiful image!)

I'm halfway joking about 'uggh...the Caribbean..."
right now, I'm in Trinidad, so it ain't the prototypical Caribbean.
Having worked in between one of the world's most beautiful places, StLucia, I found myself getting really annoyed because I realized how accustomed I had become to the conveniences of theUSA. So, I was probably more annoyed with how I had come to expect this -n- that.

I guess to summarize - The USA is a really, really easy place to live. After not having something as basic as window screens (to keep out mosquitos), or roads that a wide enough for something other than a Crappy Suzuki Samurai, or even Streets w/ out shit flowing down the gutters (straight into the beautiful Caribbean Sea), I will never complain about conditions in the USA. It really is a different, orderly & again, an easy place to live.

Also, with living on a Caribbean island, you find that the old 'Island Fever' syndrome does exist - You've just gotta git offa dat rock every few months or so.

Here in Trinidad, it's different than a place like StLucia - it's as if you're off of I-95 in South Florida...'cept that you can go to nice mountains & beaches that are WAY FAR superior to any beach in FLA. It's just that Trinidad is more business & industrially focused than the more Tourism-related islands.

But The main thing that I have trouble with in Trinidad is this: No one can just get to the friggin' point! Talk-Talk-Talk... & say so damn little. No one can just speak - it's all gotta be aGrand Oration about crap like Fan Coil Units, or Door thresholds ->>> GEESH!!!

But, I 'spose I'm getting more & more used to it.

Hahahah, I got really used to the no convenience thing. And now I can't stand the order and the laws for everything back in Australia. I was in barbados, most people just did something close to what the law expected, so no need for heap and heaps of rules for this and that. I really can't stand how ordered and law enforcing Australia is, its just gross.

Carnival is coming up after Christmas, its gonna be wild. And the girlssss.... oh tirni women are dream just yummy, so are st Lucian, in fact Caribbean women in general. Ok fuck it, I'm buying my plane ticket back today!

Trinidad is a bit of an odd place with it's high levels of violent crime, I have a friend working on the new power station in the south and he said people were threatening to kill staff if they didn't give them jobs.

All in all tho, I'd still rather be living over that way than here in Perth. Got too used to fetes now I feel uncomfortable when I got out here and have to put up with low down deep dirty house techno (add in several more wanker DJ terms).

Good luck and make sure you go to the Beach House fete in carnival week.

Cheers

Scotty V

lawlessness is fun until you feel the knife scraping your ribs. from personal experience getting knifed is not really worth celebrating. or maybe you could go the way of koolhaas' ex partner. he had a great experience in a favella (mugged, then shot dead).

if that is your thang then go for it. worked for antonio sant elia, right! oh thats right he was killed too. but he was productive before that, so its ok...i guess ;-)

louisville looks fantastic steven. nothing as nice round here at all, short of a trip to the mountains.

couldn't find a job in ohio so i had to move to italy. oh well.

this isn't exactly where i thought this thread would go. just because you live in tokyo or louisville or the caribbean doesn't mean that's where you actually work or more specifically where your projects are. are your projects in different cities? different countries? how regional/national/international is our profession?

True.
But I'll take an 'actual team', vs. a 'virtual team' anyday. Or, to put it another way - managing the progress of design consultants is much better when everyone is a car ride away.

With that said: Our US & Canadian design consultants are a whole lot more effective than the local firms, which at times seem like 'figureheads.' Additionally, our Euro GC can run circles around 'experienced' local contractors...although them Frogs are real dikk-haids.

I work in Naptown. My projects are all within a 10-mile radius of my home, most of them within a 5-mile radius.

Which I love. I feel like I'm part of a community and I'm contributing to that community. Most of my projects are remodels, so I'm making something that exists already better. I'm very un-conflicted about the vast majority of the work I do, and it's nice place to be.

my work is in tokyo, where i live. we are working on proposals in asia and europe but so far real work is where i live. there are only 5 of us so local is where the work is. same as LB, really.

It's the same storey all over the Caribbean, but don't be too ignorant to the capabilities of locals there are still all kinds of people with different capabilities where ever you are, and what ever you do don't express your discontent or more so get frustrated and say somthing you regret. Piss the wrong people off and you could be out of a job and turfted off the island quick smart. Well that's what barbados is like even though each island is different I'm sure the same idea would apply. having worked in a few different countries one of the major thing I would have to say arrogance is your worst enemy.

Cheers,

Scotty v

Don't worry, I manage my arrogance pretty well. It's those other arrogant guys...

Hahaha, alright. It was also a word advice to others reading this thinking of working overseas.

It iws true, though. An expat always has to remember that he is basically visiting someone else's home.

Silicon Valley.

on the expat note: i have wondered - when do you cease to be an expat? 5yrs, 10yrs? never? i actually have never felt that i am from anywhere.

i been an expat for almost 20 years p2an. my own birthplace is not home anymore, but tokyo is also not that normal either. nor was london. certainly i am not accepted as a native here. never will be. very disconcerting at times. whats it like in NL? you taken in, or always outside looking in?

'expat' status happens to almost anyone not in their hometown, i think. i grew up in VA, TN, FL and then lived in new orleans and minneapolis on my own. i've lived in KY for 15 yrs now but i'm still not 'from here' - despite the fact that i've lived here longer now than anywhere else. i'm a huge louisville cheerleader and love this place, but i'm still made aware on a regular basis that i'm not of here.

for me, expat just means that you no longer pay taxes to your native nation.

Noun

Singular
expatriate


Plural
expatriates

expatriate (plural expatriates)

1. One who lives outside one’s own country.
2. One who has been banished from one’s own country.

Stuck in NY,I'm a part-time waitress and looking another job to survive while secretly wishing I was living and working in Europe...With my 4 year degree I'll be getting in 2 months I could go to my native country and become an architect! but..I don't want to go there of course..

yeah i know. i was certainly using the term loosely. thus the quotes. the conversation seemed equal parts out-of-country and out-of-native-territory, so i chimed in. sorry. carry on.

yeah i know. i was certainly using the term loosely. thus the quotes. the conversation seemed equal parts out-of-country and out-of-native-territory, so i chimed in. sorry. carry on.

I always think of a highschool friend of mine who grew up on a big ass ranch in Western South Dakota. When we were freshmen in Highschool one of our instructors ask him where he lived, he ask the instructor for a map of the United States and proceed to mark out a
sizeable box and he smiled and said, "that is my father's ranch. "The teacher looked at him and he said,"ya, it is that big."
His father passed on one year after we graduated....so it is his place now.

totally valid steven. no need to apologise. orochi was just being maliciously careful about the facts ;-)

ex-pat is state of mind as much as a matter of geography and taxation (by the way, it sadly doesn't work that way. i am required to deal with taxes in two countries, not just one - maybe i am fake ex-pat?).

getting back on track a wee bit, i was wondering if your office travels far afield for work, Steven? My experience is admittedly limited but for us I don't think it is really possible to work far from home except in very special circumstances - we have local people on projects for the stuff we are trying to get in Europe. Maybe it is not that case for larger offices...?

as a rule, no. most of our work is here in kentucky or just across the river in southern indiana.

we have had projects where work has been done farther away, but those are usually just favors for existing clients, not something we foster. i think we'd have to be organized a little differently. right now we don't even charge for travel/mileage, just treat it as part of our fee. that would obviously have to change if we went farther afield.

i don't know where we fall in the 'larger offices' category. we're a company of 11-13, depending how you figure the 2 allied consultants.

I'm an ex-pat here in Indiana, and I had a party today with a bunch of other ex-pats. We're all American citizens, but in this city we are all ex-pats.

Steven, dude: you guys have to start charging mileage. Really.

perfect size for office steven.

charging for mileage sounds like a good idea to me. it is standard practice here to get paid for subway fare, which is roughly the same deal. trains are more expensive than gas though, hands down, so it makes sense to get paid for it.