Here’s a rant on my current situation. I write this at work where I make quite a lot of money and I stand to make a lot more as I advance in my career. I’m a graduate from the most prestigious business school in Sweden and people would kill for my job. Work is pretty boring and even though I’m about to change department in a week (I’m a trainee) I’m not so sure about how I feel about being stuck in the office “for life”.
Except for living 6 months in Taipei 2 years ago I’ve been living in Sweden all of my life. Stockholm is a great city in many ways but I’m fed up. There’s no sense of adventure at all. There’s no sense of spontaneity at all.
Now me and my (Taiwanese) fiancée are discussing a move back to Taiwan. I would give up my job. I hardly know any Mandarin. But I think that I might enjoy life more.
What would you do? Is there anyone here that has made “the jump”? I’m not expecting that many answers but at least the rest of my day at work will feel a bit better now.
Why would people kill for your job if its boring? Why wouldn’t you be able to just go back to it if you came to Taiwan and decided you don’t like it here?
Just how stuck in the office are you?
You’re in the office, what 8 hours a day? How interesting and rewarding would the work you find in Taipei be?
What was exciting about Taipei?
Spontaneity’s probably got as much to do with how you deal with the environment as with the environment itself, doesn’t it?
Weeeel, having just spent ten days in Sweden I understand your suffering. Swedes are very very stiff and boring. Stockholm is a very bland city. People are punctual, formal, curt but polite. However, Taipei really is a dump and has a limited ‘live by,’ date. (Sorry to offend many of my good friends with that last statement.) Don’t chuck it all in for what seems like a more exciting place. Make more of where you are. Take trips to Oslo, or Helsinki, Tallin or Riga. Trust me, you’ll be sat in a night market eating a piece of pigs blood on a stick trying to fathom out what the fucker with ranicd teeth is saying about you to your face, and you’ll think, ‘I wish I had just made more of Scandinavia.’
Money, career. I’m a management trainee for a successful company. And it has it’s upsides if you get into the right department.[/quote]
Money=boring career=boring. You just said it yourself. What upsides does it have? More money? Boring.
Are you saying you wouldn’t be able to make it in middle management later on if you left it for a jaunt in Taiwan? It REALLY requires you to jump on that boredom treadmill at such a young age? Jesus! Sounds like an awful waste of life to me.
[quote=“TomHill”]Weeeel, having just spent ten days in Sweden I understand your suffering. Swedes are very very stiff and boring. Stockholm is a very bland city. People are punctual, formal, curt but polite. However, Taipei really is a dump and has a limited ‘live by,’ date. (Sorry to offend many of my good friends with that last statement.) Don’t chuck it all in for what seems like a more exciting place. Make more of where you are. Take trips to Oslo, or Helsinki, Tallin or Riga. Trust me, you’ll be sat in a night market eating a piece of pigs blood on a stick trying to fathom out what the fucker with ranicd teeth is saying about you to your face, and you’ll think, ‘I wish I had just made more of Scandinavia.’
DONT JUMP!!![/quote]
Hahaha. This one didn’t make it easier at all. You basically sum it up very well why I don’t like Stockholm. Don’t get me started on trips to Oslo, I’ve been there 10 times this year through work and I did not enjoy having time off. Helsinki… been there three times to many. Tallin or Riga could be cool though. But it’s more about the daily life. Sitting at the night market is more exciting than sitting at home with -10 degrees Celsius outside.
Learning Chinese to begin with. Then maybe teaching some English before starting my own venture.[/quote]So why not learn Chinese where you are? If you don’t want to learn from your fiancée, find a class that’s held after work hours. And screw teaching English. Make your life in Stockholm more exciting – take classes, teach yourself to cook, throw dinner parties, join a league, travel, whatever – move up the ladder, then if you want to start your own venture, you’ll be well-placed to do so. If you really feel a need to come back to Taipei, do it in style.
Money, career. I’m a management trainee for a successful company. And it has it’s upsides if you get into the right department.[/quote]
Money=boring career=boring. You just said it yourself. What upsides does it have? More money? Boring.
Are you saying you wouldn’t be able to make it in middle management later on if you left it for a jaunt in Taiwan? It REALLY requires you to jump on that boredom treadmill at such a young age? Jesus! Sounds like an awful waste of life to me.[/quote]
Not only more money. My company does have some subsidiaries that deal with cool stuff, that’s why I started there in the first place. But yes, I’ve come to the realization that this thing called office work generally sucks, and the only thing you get out of it as you get older is more money and more hours. I probably wouldn’t have any problem making it if I move back here after a year or so but since I’ve already lived half a year in Taiwan I think I would have to stay a bit longer before giving up and then it might be hard.
Learning Chinese to begin with. Then maybe teaching some English before starting my own venture.[/quote]So why not learn Chinese where you are? If you don’t want to learn from your fiancée, find a class that’s held after work hours. And screw teaching English. Make your life in Stockholm more exciting – take classes, teach yourself to cook, throw dinner parties, join a league, travel, whatever – move up the ladder, then if you want to start your own venture, you’ll be well-placed to do so. If you really feel a need to come back to Taipei, do it in style.[/quote]
It’s hard to learn Chinese properly here unless you intend on going to college. After work classes suck. I already know how to cook well… so dinner parties are aplenty here. It’s just the way of life in general that feels less interesting here. But in the end I see your point. I guess I’m just stuck in the hole right now, thus the rant warning in my first post.
But. Ever since my fiancée moved here a year ago I sense that she doesn’t enjoy it so much here. It’s ok. But she doesn’t have the same “shine” as she has in Taiwan.
My sweetie had much the same experience. What’s she doing? Help her shine. If she’s happier, you ought to be as well.
I figure you can be bored silly, or living it up in pretty much any halfway decent city. Just takes more or less effort.
Good career opportunities, on the other hand, are empowering and should be taken advantage of whenever possible.
[quote=“Jaboney”]My sweetie had much the same experience. What’s she doing? Help her shine. If she’s happier, you ought to be as well.
I figure you can be bored silly, or living it up in pretty much any halfway decent city. Just takes more or less effort.
Good career opportunities, on the other hand, are empowering and should be taken advantage of whenever possible.[/quote]
She’s studying Swedish. The thing that will help her shine is to get a job, she doesn’t like the fact that I’m supporting her. But just like I can’t get a job, except teaching English, in Taiwan without knowing Chinese…
I agree that it can be fun pretty much anywhere. It’s just that the wait for it to happen is excruciating. We’ve said that we’ll decide what to do in the beginning of next year when my trainee period is over and she might have a job.
Ask yourself this. Do you care about money? At all? Does your fiancee?
I have no doubt that if you’re motivated, you can be very successful in Taiwan. Lots of foreigners have done it before. But perhaps 6 months isn’t enough time for you to grow to hate the place. Not saying you will, I’m just saying its a possibility. So what will you do in Taiwan that doesn’t stick you in an office there?
Then there is another aspect of staying with what you are doing. The possibility of travel. If your company is multinational, perhaps you can travel to the Far East after a few years of boring work. But it would still be an office job.
I don’t think I could ever return to my country and be satisfied. I love travel and I’m lucky that I can pretty much work all over the world. But it is mostly an office job, so I do my time and then enjoy my life around work. Some office work is better than others. If you get into a role you enjoy that challenges you, then perhaps you wouldn’t see it as being so boring. Perhaps you should speak to some people at your work about it to find out what else you could be doing.
But I can tell you this. If you stick with what you are doing now for a few years, you’ll find it harder and harder to quit. Then you might buy a house, or your gf gets pregnant and then thats it. Mr boring Swede with an office job your whole life
Went through that too. Eventually, she started volunteering at an old folks home (she likes talking to old folks). That brightened her days.
Drudgery and labour suck; work’s needful, meaningful. Maybe there’s something voluntary she can do. You’ll still be supporting her, but she’ll be contributing and feel more useful.
