They pay me to travel and party a lot: light side

In early 2011 I was given an all-in to fly around Europe and later the world 🗺. I could change 3–4 countries a week. I often had breakfast, lunch and dinner in totally different cities, sometimes countries or even continents. Everything was covered by my employer, even alcohol 🍷

I would be off on Monday and back on Friday. I went to many games industry events, I supported salespeople, found my ways into the offices of the world coolest game developers.

People often tell me they envy my job and my life— I get to see the world 🗺 hang out, and all my food 🥘 drinks 🍹 and flight ✈️ expenses are covered. What a life!

I normally didn’t use my paid holidays because… travels 🧳 and parties 🎉 were what I did for work. And everything else was much more fun in the office than at home.

Imagine nobody really expects you in the office because your job is to travel. But sometimes you need to do some research, development, clean the feathers, not talk to people. Well, fine. Stay at home or come to the office whenever you want. Or work from a cafe, from a bench in the park under the sun, from a rooftop bar, hang out an extra day or two after the event in Paris, or add several calmer days after the event in, say, Berlin. The world is yours.

I think I collected 5 years worth of vacations upon living my first developer relations job.

Now it is different. I am based in Sweden, where vacation laws are serious about people actually taking days off. One can carry over a max of 5 vacation days, so I am obliged to take at least 30 days off a year. Plus a community day for some volunteering beyond the office.

By this point, you should be looking for a catch in this all. A friend of mine recently nailed it: “I was envious about your job until I got to travel 🧳 for a few weeks”.

Who cares about the glamorous life some kid has or had? The dark side of the same story is longer and much less glamorous. It comes next.

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