Life as AFAC

Being an expat changes one’s perspective faster than I thought. Especially on travelling. Back home it seems so hard to travel. It’s not necessarily expensive, but since people are generally earning just enough or a little bit extra, it’s seems harder to part with money you’ve spent ages to save on a 3-day trip. People also feel guilty taking long vacations while everyone else is at work, or worse, doing more overtime because of your load. I should know, I had about a month’s worth of VLs forfeited in BBDO in my three year stint there. (Nobody told me it’s non-transferable to next year!!! I should’ve taken more time off!)
“Sarap mo naman, pabaka-bakasyon lang. (Wow you’re living the high life, all you do is take vacations here and there.)” In a country where people work very hard, take countless sidelines for extra money (starting from teachers selliing longganisa to notary publics accepting labada), and take up nursing not exactly for the love of the job but for money and an exit visa… taking a lot of time off can be misconstrued as lazy, not taking your job seriously, or maluho (spendthrift). The traditional concept is to work hard all your life, and enjoy the fruits of your labor when you’re old and errr…. don’t have the energy to enjoy travelling anymore.
Here in BBH Shanghai, travelling around the world seems like the norm. Everyone seems so well-travelled, not just the whiteys but the asians as well. The Sings talk about France like it’s Cubao. The Chinese have studied in London. Some just went to Australia, Greece, Cambodia for R&R. And a couple of weeks ago, our MD told my boss I have to use up my 2006 VL or it will be forfeited. And my boss made me take a holiday even if we had a pitch coming up.
So without much thought I booked a flight to HK and a side trip to Macau. Just like that. And I’m glad I did.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 7:18 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.