Show Me the Money - Page 2
© Tracy Bowens
If you think that you may want to work abroad, don't leave your home country without your school transcripts and diploma. The country in which I worked even wanted papers to prove that I had graduated from high school! Also, make sure that your papers are translated into the appropriate language.
Keep your originals. Send copies, not your originals. When a fellow teacher and I were told that our papers had been lost, I was lucky enough to still have the originals so I was able to quickly recreate the package. She, however, had to send away for the orginals and do another translation of a 193 page thesis.
Have money set aside. Even in the United States, there can be a delay in pay when you first begin a new job. The amount of time depends on your start date and the pay cycle.
Have another source of income. The next best thing to having enough money of your own to live on in case you don't get paid is having another source of income. My freelance writing assignments saved me from financial ruin.
Talk to people working in the same organization. After I realized that I wasn't going to be paid any time in the near future, I started talking to other teachers and discovered that some had contracts, but still had not been paid and that it took one teacher a whole year before she was able to collect her salary. Having this knowledge prior to taking the job would have been quite helpful.
Work through an organization. If you just want the experience of living and working abroad and are willing to work anywhere, think of joining an organization and receiving you payment through them. The teachers that I worked with who were there through organizations had no problem collecting all of their salary on time.
Know the financial situation of the country in which you are working. Even though sometimes it's hard to look at the country I worked in and think of it as poor, the fact is that the government had no money and depended heavily on funding from other nations.
Be patient. All is not lost in my case. When I finally do get paid, it will be retroactive.
Do work that you love. It is much easier to deal with such situations if you derive satisfaction from the work that you do.
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