Hypothetical life scenario
Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 5:02 am
Hey,
Extremely random question here but I've been posting here for years, respect several posters on this board, and hell this may even be of interest to some of you.
Situation: You're 24 years old. Graduated from university with a degree in Political Science (wow, useless) and left Vancouver 6 months ago, to travel to India for a couple of months with the intention of settling in Paris and living there for a year. You've been accepted into Law in London. You're on the fence about this because the primary reason you're even considering it is because you figure you can make good money.
It's been your goal for several years to become fully bilingual. You already speak a respectable amount of French, so after a year you'd most likely achieve this goal. You've been living in Paris for almost two months, absolutely love it, and after countless rejections you've just landed two jobs, both of which are incredibly better than you could have imagined.
Job #1:
Office Boy at a major American Law Firm on the Champs Elysées. The work is menial (making tea, photocopying) but there is the very realistic opportunity of promotion. The salary is extremely good for Paris (and for what you do) and this an excellent opportunity to get your foot in the door should you choose to study Law. Should you succeed and enjoy the firm, they may even pay for your tuition in London the following year and you could land a job in their firm in the future. All speculation at this point but very possible. You receive all the standard benefits of a union.
Job #2:
International Trades Journalist for a relatively small Turkish based company, with contact offices in Paris (the owners are French). You endured the most gruelling interviews of your life and excelled. Should you accept the job, you would move to Istanbul in a month. There you would receive training for 1 month before working on your first project over the next two. You would then move to a Gulf state to work on your first "real" project. You would be working with a team of 3 to setup interviews with CEOs of major petrol companies and various government ministers. Your job would be to conduct the interviews and write up comprehensive country reports. The salesperson would be responsible for convincing the CEOs to buy advertising spots in your magazine (1 magazine per country). After 3 months, you would move to your next country and repeat the process. You would average 3 projects a year and would presumably put together 3 magazines a year. The OilandGasYear is the latest venture of the company. They have been based in the pharmaceutical sector for the last few years. To date they have published 1 country magazine and are looking to publish another four this year. Readership was 16,000 in 50 different countries. 65% of subscribers are CEOs. You'd probably be based in the Middle East a lot for the first year but could travel anywhere from Malaysia to India to Ukraine to Mexico as time passes.
You would be paid in Euros tax-free with no living expenses and would receive private health insurance. The base salary is quite good but you could make a lot more in commissions. Although you are not the direct salesperson, sales is the name of the game, and should your team not sell well you most likely would be sacked. Go big or go home, so to speak. You could live comfortably off the base salary alone but then again if you don't sell enough to earn commission, then you're probably not going to last long. The contract offers you little to no protection. You are subject to Turkish Law and the company reserves the right to give you two weeks notices for "unsatisfactory performance." There's also a slight question of legitimacy. Although the interviews were professional, the company actually has a couple of spelling mistakes on their website and two in the contract (typos). You fit the exact profile the company looks for - young, unattached, well-travelled.
So that's that. What would you do? Go for old dependable in your favourite city in the world or the allure of high risk, high reward?
Thanks buddies.... oh and er... Go Canucks Go! Hahahaha.
Extremely random question here but I've been posting here for years, respect several posters on this board, and hell this may even be of interest to some of you.
Situation: You're 24 years old. Graduated from university with a degree in Political Science (wow, useless) and left Vancouver 6 months ago, to travel to India for a couple of months with the intention of settling in Paris and living there for a year. You've been accepted into Law in London. You're on the fence about this because the primary reason you're even considering it is because you figure you can make good money.
It's been your goal for several years to become fully bilingual. You already speak a respectable amount of French, so after a year you'd most likely achieve this goal. You've been living in Paris for almost two months, absolutely love it, and after countless rejections you've just landed two jobs, both of which are incredibly better than you could have imagined.
Job #1:
Office Boy at a major American Law Firm on the Champs Elysées. The work is menial (making tea, photocopying) but there is the very realistic opportunity of promotion. The salary is extremely good for Paris (and for what you do) and this an excellent opportunity to get your foot in the door should you choose to study Law. Should you succeed and enjoy the firm, they may even pay for your tuition in London the following year and you could land a job in their firm in the future. All speculation at this point but very possible. You receive all the standard benefits of a union.
Job #2:
International Trades Journalist for a relatively small Turkish based company, with contact offices in Paris (the owners are French). You endured the most gruelling interviews of your life and excelled. Should you accept the job, you would move to Istanbul in a month. There you would receive training for 1 month before working on your first project over the next two. You would then move to a Gulf state to work on your first "real" project. You would be working with a team of 3 to setup interviews with CEOs of major petrol companies and various government ministers. Your job would be to conduct the interviews and write up comprehensive country reports. The salesperson would be responsible for convincing the CEOs to buy advertising spots in your magazine (1 magazine per country). After 3 months, you would move to your next country and repeat the process. You would average 3 projects a year and would presumably put together 3 magazines a year. The OilandGasYear is the latest venture of the company. They have been based in the pharmaceutical sector for the last few years. To date they have published 1 country magazine and are looking to publish another four this year. Readership was 16,000 in 50 different countries. 65% of subscribers are CEOs. You'd probably be based in the Middle East a lot for the first year but could travel anywhere from Malaysia to India to Ukraine to Mexico as time passes.
You would be paid in Euros tax-free with no living expenses and would receive private health insurance. The base salary is quite good but you could make a lot more in commissions. Although you are not the direct salesperson, sales is the name of the game, and should your team not sell well you most likely would be sacked. Go big or go home, so to speak. You could live comfortably off the base salary alone but then again if you don't sell enough to earn commission, then you're probably not going to last long. The contract offers you little to no protection. You are subject to Turkish Law and the company reserves the right to give you two weeks notices for "unsatisfactory performance." There's also a slight question of legitimacy. Although the interviews were professional, the company actually has a couple of spelling mistakes on their website and two in the contract (typos). You fit the exact profile the company looks for - young, unattached, well-travelled.
So that's that. What would you do? Go for old dependable in your favourite city in the world or the allure of high risk, high reward?
Thanks buddies.... oh and er... Go Canucks Go! Hahahaha.