The Expat Life - for the uninitiated

Or "the difficulties of working abroad"

"Dutch mayonnaise is not as good as English mayonnaise", intones Simon, the Development Manager.

Simon stretches back, folds his hands behind his head and waits for the authority of his words to take effect.

Well, what do I know ? This is my first day working in Rotterdam. I wouldn't know Dutch mayonnaise if I fell over it. I'm too busy watching Gerrit, the Dutch Oracle support guy, with his feet up on the office desk, watching a video of a talking penis. As you do when you're supporting an Oracle system for a major shipping company.

The mayo debate continues unabashed all afternoon, with some expat office staff pro and some con. I decide to remain neutral in the weighty matter. "New boy."

Gerrit cracks open another beer or six at the desk and goes home quite happy.

I go home quite confused.

When I get home, someone has had the temerity to send me a gas bill. In Dutch. How inconsiderate of them. Well, I presume it's the gas bill, it could be some kind of ancient Sumerian epic for all I know. Oh yes, and the lights don't work, so I hunt around for something resembling a fuse box and eventually find a suitable candidate with strange, wine bottle like fuses in which I've never seen the like of before. This involves a lot of crashing around in darkened cupboards whilst swearing.

Whilst I'm wondering just how you pay a Dutch gas bill, and where (this being pre internet days) one of the two house cats I've agreed to look after as a condition of renting the flat suddenly, and out of pure spite, develops explosive diahorrea. There is a terrible noise, a terrible smell, and a terrible mess which requires cleaning up.

This includes the poor cat.

Not being a prior cat owner, I decide that the best way to make the poor creature feel better is to give her a bath. The predictable result is that a cat with wet legs runs all around the flat terrified, with urine spraying everywhere.

So naturally I go to the bar downstairs.

"What's Duvel ? " I ask, innocently.

"Ahh, this is Belgian beer, it's very strong, drink it slowly" says the helpful barmaid.

So of course, I ignore her.

Six Duvels later, on an empty stomach, I end up crawling up the incredibly steep stairs of my Dutch flat, giggling. Basically, I have given myself a liquid based prefrontal lobotomy.

I switch on the television, it's Teletubbies. In Dutch. So I pour out a coffee to sober up, and yes, folks, Dave has bought a carton of yoghurt and not milk, so let's forget the coffee for now.

The next day, I go into work, slightly the worse for wear.

Gerrit rings in sick.

"Hej hej, Dave - I can't come in, I'm still drunk from last night. And I spent all my money so I can't afford to get the tram, and I don't like the job anyway. "

Welcome to the world of working abroad.

"You're all insane"

After a couple of months of the confusing life of a first time expat, you come to an interesting conclusion. Everyone is insane.

The country you live in is bizarre. They all speak English here, but some of the things the inhabitants do is completely inexplicable. The expats you work with are similarly demented and appear to have gone mad, mainly through drink, as that's what you do when the only thing on television is The Tellytubbies. In Dutch.

Everything is just..... weird. Very. You go home at night to two cats, who are - and you can't explain this - not like English cats, either. Somehow, they have weird Dutch habits as well. Your world is basically four walls, two demented cats, the mice from the Turkish bakery downstairs (which your cats ignore), a Dutch washing machine which is as complicated as a nuclear reactor..... and beer.

"Let's all go for a drink, " says one of the expats, "at the Locus Publicus. As it has 365 different beers."

This is perhaps not a good idea as you collectively decide to drink them all, in a display of English stupidity and one upmanship. Let's say it doesn't make the situation any less complicated.

Oh yes, and you're out on a limb, doing a specialised job in the middle of a foreign country. What if the company fails ? You are absolutely up shit creek without a paddle. So. Oh yes. Beer.

After several months, you decide that you Have To Go Home. Temporarily. You have to get on a plane and fly back to England for the weekend. As you feel utterly trapped in a completely weird and stressful foreign country.

Yes, there are some great points about living in the Netherlands. Some absolutely wonderful points, in fact. The people are really, really nice. There's a whole city, in fact, country to explore. It's the little things, like the food. Even the shower gel. The lighting shops. The beer.

And then there's the bad things, which start to really, really get to you. Just the normal irritations in life, like someone at the railway station pestering you for money to buy drugs. Drunks in bars. (Of which you are slowly but surely becoming one because "Tellytubbies". ) The little things which, if you were back home, you'd shrug off. Here, they seem much more irritating.

Because you're actually very stressed about living in a strange new environment, doing a high intensity job, and you've not realised it.

So you get on a plane and fly back to the UK for the weekend.

As soon as the wheels touch the runway in Manchester, you realise that the pilot could spool the engines up and fly back to Rotterdam again. It's just a "trapped" thing. Eventually, if you decide to stay in Rotterdam, it'll become home, you'll need to go back less often, you'll gain more confidence.

Theoretically.

When you get back to Rotterdam, Simon has gone. A week later, James leaves. And it transpires that very few people stay for more than six to nine months.

Probably due to the Tellytubbies, and beer.

Show me the way to go home

One thing employers occasionally fail to recognise, when getting staff to work abroad, is that they need proper support when they get there.

It's great in theory to say "Franz will love working in the United Kingdom", when Franz gets there from Germany and realises he hates the food, can't get German football on television, and he has to speak English all the time, which is mentally wearing.

It might be great for the company, it might be impressive on Franz's CV for later, but... without proper support when he gets to Manchester, or Liverpool or Hemel Hempstead or wherever, the clock is ticking before Franz wishes he was back in Nord Rhein Westphalia with a stein of DAB beer and Borussia Dortmund playing on the television. In his local bar.

Where, if the job goes, he can pretty easily get another one.

So what do expats abroad need ?

The absolute first thing that anyone working abroad needs is.... to know that they're being looked after by the company.

Perhaps the best thing is to offer them the position on a contract basis - "Six months in Rotterdam for you and then back home for three months. Option to go back if you want it. And we pay the flights."

If you have an end date, as an expat, you have that sense of job security. And a contract removes the feeling of being trapped. They also have to know that they have a job to come back to and won't be dispensed with whilst they're living overseas.

Secondly, you need to know, if there's a family emergency, that the company will help you get home quickly. That weighs on your mind.

Thirdly. You need someone who is a native of the country you're in to help you with stupid things which you can't do. Like get a residency stamp in your passport. Open a bank account. Pay your gas bill. Show you where the bars are. Some kind of uncle or auntie who will make sure you're happy and looked after.

Fourthly. You can't live in a rat hole, you'll end up stressed and burn out quickly. You need decent accommodation. You don't want to end up sleeping on a camp bed and then wonder where to buy a freezer, and then haul it up three flights of stairs. You don't want to find an apartment in a cheap area and then find the reason why it's cheap is the methadone clinic is next door and there's a brothel on the other side. Unless that's your bag, man.

Ideally, you should come back to a safe, peaceful haven, sit back on the new sofa, open the fridge, get a beer out - which you could get in England, switch on the telly and watch something in English (although not Tellytubbies) and be able to ring up someone and say "How do I pay this damn gas bill ? "

Also, you should go over to an environment where someone finds you all the English clubs where you can speak your own language, suggests bars and entertainment you might like - cinema in Dutch might have it's own charms but it gets wearing - you need to go over to a turnkey solution to the essential problem of "you may go mad."

So there's my $0.02.

If all this sounds familiar to you, get in touch here. If not, well, get in touch here anyway ! Hope this brought a smile to your face, even if it's a sardonic one.

All the best

Dave