Hello all, this is my first post but I've been scouring several national forums over this board and I have some question that I have been wrestling with.
I was born in the former USSR, but I was only 9 when I got here to the states.. I will be 27 this coming may, and I'm American by far.
In my time here though, I have been a little jaded by the jobs I've held and the people I've met. I live in Buffalo, NY and have been a head clerk at a retail store while I went to college, then a retail manager after promotion, then a commodity broker coordinator at a local commodity brokerage, promoted to Lead IT tech.
I left my job some time back and am about to finish my Masters of Science in Management Information Systems. A degree I can take a lot of places.
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My issue has been that I find the work culture that I have experienced here stateside particularly unpleasant. I leave it to the possibility that retail management and an internally competitive brokerage might have been exceptions to the norm.. but I have been seriously disheartened.
The prevailing attitudes of exhaustive self servitude, extreme consciousness of self image, and unnecessary-yet-encouraged adversarial hostility towards coworkers have been the theme of my work experience here in the states so far.
It may be harsh, but I find people here are often cruel to both themselves and others with a commonplace sense that is just so abrasive to your own ethical core that it will breed debilitating hopelessness inside you if you let it.
Perhaps its the places I worked, or the depressing attitude of Buffalo in general.. but after years of this, I cant bare to call these an illusion any longer.
This past August I took a 2 week trip to NZ, where I stayed a week at a Buddhist monastery and the 2nd week touring the country on an adventure tour. We met so many locals, and the people everywhere were so welcoming, that I forgot to shield myself in that same sense of mild preemptive adversarial cautionary abrasiveness that I required while dealing with businesses and unknown individuals here stateside. The expectations of my interactions were raised, my sense of base ethical humanity bolstered, and my environmental reluctance, spiritually eroded more and more with each interaction. It was a sense of happiness I didn't think I'd relive after leaving childhood.
I have been giving the idea of moving to NZ after my degree some VERY serious thought. I already understand some baseline taxation practice, immigration policy, dual citizenship, currency, housing, job, and insurance issues I would need to surmount if I should make the move.
But.........
I feel this sense about the move.. this feeling of abandoning friendships and family ties. I hate these feelings of guilt, as if I was being ungrateful to my country.
Before I commit to anything, I just wanted to hear the opinions of others, about working in the US and abroad.
Should I really make the move? Is this a case of grass being greener on the other side? Should I give a different state a try first? Or should I grab a 2 year work visa to NZ and try that, and then come back when my disillusionment fades?
How did you guys do it.. how did you take that final step?
(I'm going to post this in the NZ section as well)
I was born in the former USSR, but I was only 9 when I got here to the states.. I will be 27 this coming may, and I'm American by far.
In my time here though, I have been a little jaded by the jobs I've held and the people I've met. I live in Buffalo, NY and have been a head clerk at a retail store while I went to college, then a retail manager after promotion, then a commodity broker coordinator at a local commodity brokerage, promoted to Lead IT tech.
I left my job some time back and am about to finish my Masters of Science in Management Information Systems. A degree I can take a lot of places.
---
My issue has been that I find the work culture that I have experienced here stateside particularly unpleasant. I leave it to the possibility that retail management and an internally competitive brokerage might have been exceptions to the norm.. but I have been seriously disheartened.
The prevailing attitudes of exhaustive self servitude, extreme consciousness of self image, and unnecessary-yet-encouraged adversarial hostility towards coworkers have been the theme of my work experience here in the states so far.
It may be harsh, but I find people here are often cruel to both themselves and others with a commonplace sense that is just so abrasive to your own ethical core that it will breed debilitating hopelessness inside you if you let it.
Perhaps its the places I worked, or the depressing attitude of Buffalo in general.. but after years of this, I cant bare to call these an illusion any longer.
This past August I took a 2 week trip to NZ, where I stayed a week at a Buddhist monastery and the 2nd week touring the country on an adventure tour. We met so many locals, and the people everywhere were so welcoming, that I forgot to shield myself in that same sense of mild preemptive adversarial cautionary abrasiveness that I required while dealing with businesses and unknown individuals here stateside. The expectations of my interactions were raised, my sense of base ethical humanity bolstered, and my environmental reluctance, spiritually eroded more and more with each interaction. It was a sense of happiness I didn't think I'd relive after leaving childhood.
I have been giving the idea of moving to NZ after my degree some VERY serious thought. I already understand some baseline taxation practice, immigration policy, dual citizenship, currency, housing, job, and insurance issues I would need to surmount if I should make the move.
But.........
I feel this sense about the move.. this feeling of abandoning friendships and family ties. I hate these feelings of guilt, as if I was being ungrateful to my country.
Before I commit to anything, I just wanted to hear the opinions of others, about working in the US and abroad.
Should I really make the move? Is this a case of grass being greener on the other side? Should I give a different state a try first? Or should I grab a 2 year work visa to NZ and try that, and then come back when my disillusionment fades?
How did you guys do it.. how did you take that final step?
(I'm going to post this in the NZ section as well)