How does a month of work as global worker look like?

Catchy question, right?

Working in a multinational company, spread in over 50 countries, has its advantages. One of those is frequent intercontinental travels you may have to do as a part of your role. Usually you don’t get it as a newie, but I had a crazy luck to visit 5 countries in one month!

It all started with International Presidents Meeting of AIESEC. We had a workshop as a part of our Global IS partnership with AIESEC. Conference was held in beautiful city of Ohrid (Macedonia, FYRO). I used the chance to visit our Hungarian operations before that, as I wanted to involve them more in our program. So, my route was looking something like this:

Mumbai - Budapest (by air)
Budapest - Belgrade - Skopje (by train)
Skopje - Ohrid (by car)
Ohrid - Skopje - Belgrade (by bus, my vacation :-))
Belgrade - Mumbai (by air)

Conference itself was quite good, you can find a separate post about Trip to IPM. Two weeks after, a new assignment! We were participants on a AIESEC regional congres - European XPRO 2008, held in St Petersburg, Russia. Conference was quite important due presence of our target countries for cooperation, and as most of them are newly elected national office vice presidents, it was better to “educate” them about our program while they are at the begining of their term.

Now, imagine coming from tropical Mumbai, with 30C during evening, to Baltic Russia, with 1C during day. My hosts even said it was a nice weather, they are expecting -10C! The biggest shocker was one guy who flew with us from Frankfurt, he exited the airport in Russia with only short sleves and short jeans! I suppose it was not that cold :-).

City experience was amaizing! On every corner you can feel the great Russian empire, legacy of Peter the Great. It is impossible to describe its beauty by words, so I will post some pictures, and its up to you to experience it

Amaizing, isn’t it?

After Russian adventure, snow blizzard when going to the airport (famous Russian winter), I came back to Mumbai, and found another news. I am suppose to go to Iberoamerica Leadership Congress in Spain, as my colleauge didn’t got visa. I was suppose to travel in two days to Barcelona!

Don’t get me wrong, its interesting to travel, get to see new culture/cities, but at the same time…imagine changing climate and time zones 4 time in period of 2 weeks! It’s crazy. I just wished to stay for a week or two on one place, and don’t move. Beside that, I’ve been almost a month and a half out of any trainee gatherings in Mumbai, and felt like I just came to India. All over again (as most of them left home, and new folks came).

From the professional view, this trips were priceless. I met our executives from different geographies, got insight into different perspectives of AIESEC offices worldwide, and established valuable contacts that will support me in the coming months. In general, I got to know more about the needs of the organziation, and how to make it happen through AIESEC.

Again, Spain was a different experience. Meeting old friends, Olga, Navarette and Toni. Experiencing lively latin spirit. My role was the same as in Russia, organize a workshop with our managers from TCS Spain, and conduct meetings to promote the ACE Program. Both were quite a success, of course :-). Stayed there for 4 days, and managed to get half of the day free to sightsee Barcelona! Unfortunately, Kamp Nou didn’t had a game during that weekend, so no luck seeing Primera game live :-(. Here is the link to my flickr album, enjoy the pics!

After that I returned to Mumbai, almost month and a half of traveling around Europe. My next stops are The Netherlands in July and Brazil in August, after that I’m finishing with my ACE term, and starting new career page, will see which one ;-).

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