What was it I did for a living, again?

I work in Relocation. International relocation specifically, although there's not that much of it around at the moment. The company I work for, and I shall mention no names because you know how these blog get around, is a company that also does relocation within the USA and separates the two groups of business into Domestic and International.

International is really about Assignment Management. People are shipped off around the world for periods lasting between a couple weeks and many years. In the meantime, some unbelievably complex things happen to their financial status and their tax burden, and we also have to arrange shipment of things like household goods and schooling for kids...all manner of malarky.

The people I work with are unbelievably diverse. Between us we represent 22 nationalities and speak 29 languages; we have six major faiths (three of which are Christian offshoots, but they count) and a panoply of accents.

Everyone who works on that team, with the exception of my wife, has lived or worked abroad and has an understanding of what it is to be a stranger in a strange land.

They are an incredibly interesting bunch of people.

The work itself is beyond complicated and very people intensive. Part of our accounting function is based in India, because processing expenses and suchlike is a huge drain on resources, and a large part of our jobs ends up being jousting with the Outsourced beancounters about what they should or should not allow. One of the ironic things is that they regularly deny expenses that are accompanied by receipts that are not in English.

First, if you have ever been to Korea, or China, have you tried getting a receipt in English? This works the same for Iceland too.

Second, do you see the irony of a company in India, where there are about eleventy major languages, complaining about documents not being in English?

Other interesting things are afoot too. One of the things you can do in my job is watch trends. For example - if you want to know where the best place in the world to hire cheap workers is, watch the relocation and assignment patterns of some of the major companies. For the last couple of years, I have been looking at Africa and I've decided that if it could sort itself out there are parts of Africa that would be ideal for the kind of thing that India currently does. Capitalism is driving upgrades in the standard of living westwards, away from China and back towards Europe. In a couple of centuries, the Low Countries and France will be where it's all happening. History is cyclical in so many respects.