I.T. and Business Travel

I love taking photos at airports. It is where I experience the anticipation of exploring distant places and the comfort of arrival and coming home.

Today I learned about the approval of my Schengen Visa application. While some people find this quite trivial, I was thrilled when I saw the confirmation email from the Belgian Embassy this morning, telling me that I must book my flight to Belgium and send them a copy of the e-ticket before they can release my passport. The prospect of travel always excites me, and the idea of traveling to Europe with all of my expenses paid makes me feel even more blessed. Some people scrimp and save to go to Europe, but the opportunity was easily given to me and I'm very thankful.

Of course, this is not entirely the universe's doing. I'd like to think I have a hand at landing these opportunities because of my skills and credibility as a systems analyst. My previous Senior Manager reached out to me recently and mentioned that she recommended me to this project--perhaps she liked my work ethic and my previous performance and thus believed in my ability to deliver another implementation. Despite the fact that I was only trained and did not have any project experience in Oracle On Demand, I told the interviewer that I can still leverage my 8 years of experience in Siebel Development on this project. I was vocal about my willingness to learn and be retooled even if it meant resetting my technical skills back to zero. Medyo pa bibo ako. Hahaha. Shortly after my interview, I got a deployment notice and was told that I was selected to fly to Belgium this July. The thought that I was going to learn about Cloud Computing to keep up with this emerging trend in CRM Applications excited me. I will also be undergoing further training with Oracle University in the next couple of weeks, so that's also something to look forward to. 

View from my hotel room during one of my business trips.

Throughout my I.T. career, all of my projects allowed me to travel and live in another country for more or less, two months each time. These business trips differ from my personal travels because I was given a chance to immerse myself in the culture of my host country for a longer period. My personal travels usually last about a week with with friends whom I'm completely comfortable with, so I tend to stick with my group and simply enjoy the novelty of my surroundings. With business travel, I'm forced to get out of my comfort zone because aside from the challenge of getting used to the environment, I also needed to adjust to the people I meet. Business travels require me to establish good working relationship with my colleagues and clients from my host country in order for me to perform my job as a consultant. I ended up being friends with my colleagues from the US and Australia, that we also spent time together outside office hours. They showed me around the city, taught me their slang, invited me to their homes, and one of them even spent Christmas with my family here in Manila! 

People in transit. I used a lomo camera for this. 

Prior to the news of my onshore deployment, I didn't know crap about Belgium aside from the fact that they have really good chocolates, beer and waffles. I did a bit of reading and now I know that they are also known for their diamonds, their fries, jazz music, and of course, their art. I'm writing down my bucket list and must see places in Belgium, so hopefully I get the chance to explore and tick them off one by one. 

Travel is one of the perks of being a consultant. Aside from the free airfare, lodging and daily allowance, what I like most about being an I.T.consultant is that I get to work in different projects to widen my knowledge in application development/project management and meet all sorts of people. Surely other jobs have more opportunities for travel, but hey, I'm thankful that I still get my own share of free boarding passes. :)

What are the perks of your day job?

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