Cold inside and out


It’s technically no longer summer but it’s 25 bloody degrees out and I’m in here freezing my butt off. We had the aircon (it’s easier for Koreans to say than air conditioner) set at 24 and let me tell you that for such a tiny little box it’s done a hell of a job of turning our
apartment into an ice box. Maybe it’s my terrible blood circulation but until I just put socks and a sweater on I think my feet were about to fall off.

Anyways, I’ve been worrying a bit about the future recently and reading some job/financial blogs recently. Namely raganwald2.0 who is a very well spoken person in the tech field. It’s gotten me thinking about whether I want to try and get a tech job right when I get home and start moving up in their company as Az and Tony are both doing at their jobs. Or whether I want to go back to university and earn a masters degree, as I’m really excited about the field of HCI (or Human Computer Interaction).

Even though I miss all my friends from back home and can’t wait to see them all again I’ve still got the travel bug and want to see more of the world. The thing that bothers me essentially is that I love travelling and meeting new people but I’m also excited to get a job in tech and start coding or designing things. Unfortunately, as far as I know these two passions do not overlap very well and there is very little demand for wandering hobo-coders.

So my goal here is to strike a balance between the two and find a job that allows or encourages travel and is also tech based. Any suggestions or encouragements would be well appreciated.

Cheers

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September 4th, 2006
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Iain
Posted on:
September 5, 2006 at 2:52 am

Yo. I’m lucky that journalism and traveling overlap; in that, no one wants either a traveler or a journalist to do any work for them. Ha.

Also - think about what is easier or at least more desirable: 1) Starting to move up in a tech company and then traveling, or 2) Traveling around a bit and then settling down to take a tech job.

Also, I met a guy who was coding websites (is that correct?) in Beijing, but he was Japanese. He just moved there, and he had American clients - so he was technically still traveling and he was working in tech. But try finding a tech job in China, I dare you.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Az
Posted on:
September 6, 2006 at 12:54 am

I had the same dilema when we were finishing university. As you know I also was considering going somewhere to teach English for a year. I love to travel and see places. But I also got big ambitions for the future, and in order to get there sooner rather than later I cannot aford to waste time now. Although, we are now at the perfect travelling age.

A job that requires travelling would be the ideal solution as long as you get to see places you go to and not just hotel, office and airport.

I get to travel with my work now, but it’s nothing exciting, mostly small towns in Canada and a few in the US. Tony’s job, on the other hand, looks sweet in terms of travelling the world.

Well sooner or later I’ll travel the world too. You are welcome to join me. :)

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Chris Marlow
Posted on:
September 6, 2006 at 3:08 am

After watching a little of America’s next top model I’m thinking maybe I should become a male model. travel the world and make kissy faces at cameras.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
tony
Posted on:
September 7, 2006 at 1:07 am

Hey Mr. Marlow,

Three words: Be A Consultant!

They have a 14% job satisfaction rate… hahaha… guess why? Because of too much travel!

I never understood what the term consultant really meant until I started work. Now I understand that it’s more of a category than a specific job. I would suggest, staying away from a programming job and get into consulting… you’ll still be able to program from day to day and it will help you advance your career.

Programmers don’t get to meet many other people but consultants get to meet all kinds of them.

One final word of advice… working in consulting is cool, but working in a software lab, regardless of whether you’re a consultant is not cool… ie, lack of GIRLZ :(

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Reg Braithwaite
Posted on:
September 7, 2006 at 2:16 am

Thanks for the link!

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
Az
Posted on:
September 8, 2006 at 2:19 am

Yea Dude!

Consulting! For the project I’m working on now we had to hire some consultants, and they are not cheap. About $20k for one month of consulting and making recommendations on how we should implement our project. And according to this guy he does travel enough.

Hmm….

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
Mum
Posted on:
September 8, 2006 at 8:20 am

working - travel it’s called vacation time! I think to be a consultant you need some experience first but if you don’t mind uncertainty they get paid well

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
Lampy
Posted on:
September 19, 2006 at 6:15 am

Hey Chris,

Working in tech and travelling for extended periods of time is possible thanks to the interweeb. I hope so anyways, as thats what I’m banking on ;) My plan is to create websites that don’t need day-to-day tending, so all I would need is a good internet connection for decent periods of time. The more common way would be to do contract work for building websites. I didn’t meet anyone doing this in Aus/NZ/Asia but I know people do it in Europe. I think you would have to have a base of operations though (ie. Toronto… or Calgary if you are really serious) where you could establish some clientelle first or find a webdev company that will send you small jobs.

That’d be sweet if you did that so then we can meet up somewhere.. say a slow-paced town with hi-speed internet on the Mediterranean? Haha.. ok I suppose I better get back to work if that is ever gonna happen on my end… good luck and keep us posted.

Brrrrrrr,
Mark