This is not so much about how Bermuda sucks - more about how my first job here sucked and lessons I learned about the process of relocating.

I walked down the hibiscus lined lane from our temporary hotel to work, smirking to myself, the lucky Canadian smelling the tropical scents rather than fighting through wintry slush back home. I arrived and was led deep down into the basement of one of the major banks. It was then that I began to realise that maybe everything wasn?t going to be perfect. I passed into the territory of 30 year old cast-off furniture jammed tightly together, occupants seated inches apart peering at each other through the windowless gloom. In the sunny island paradise, I was not to see daylight during business hours for the next few years.

I sat down at my computer: a quarter of the processing power and memory of my last workstation, 4 operating systems behind the current, and no Internet! This was my tool to perform my job, very computer-intensive work.

Later on I strolled over to the lady who handles business cards, said ?Good morning? (I was ready for that one), and asked for mine. I was told that only bank officers get business cards. Only bank officers get business cards! What in the world kind of Dickensian business had I gotten myself into? I was no newcomer to my job and had extensive experience already, but did not qualify for cards to hand out to contacts outside the company. Pretty darn embarrassing.

Lesson #1: Insist on a Site Visit
My interview was in Canada. You can?t really ask these types of questions during job interviews ?Gee, do I get business cards?? without sounding like a nit-picking dweeb and losing out on the offer. You can, however, insist that the prospective employer fly you down to see the premises, meet your potential co-workers, and see how things run. If they do not fulfil this request, they either have something to hide or they are too cheap to fly you down. In either case, you don?t want to work for them.

Lesson #2: Thoroughly Analyse Wage Levels in the New Country
My salary figure at the bank was slightly higher than it was in Canada. The higher currency value and low tax rate did actually compensate for the extreme cost of living in Bermuda. I was better off here than back in Canada. I had calculated all this (as it turns out, correctly) before accepting the job, so I leapt at the offer in my happiness to move to this Garden of Eden paradise.

What I didn?t realise, however, was that I could be making double my bank salary at most of the exempt companies. It was my bad luck and relocation inexperience to end up working where I was for half my earning potential. It was several years before that situation got rectified.

Lesson 4, listen to your instincts and lesson 5, investigate your future employer's reputation with clients and community.

I did my interviews in London for a PR agency in Hamilton. First interview went well, I was called back the next day. Also went well. Because I didn't warm much to my potential employer as a person, I grilled her on some issues that were important to me. She gave the right answers and all but told me I had the job. I waited, waited, waited. Just as I was within seconds of committing to something else, figuring that she had changed her mind, I got a call. Another staff member had 'had to leave the island due to family illness back in UK' (I juch later found what more there was to it) and there was a second vacancy, please complete immigration forms, chest x-ray etc etc. I did all the paperwork, and waited. I was asked for more paperwork, which I sent. As time got closer, I was having to run up a FedEx bill to get info there in time that had not been originally requested. That was never refunded. I booked my flight (also never refunded). The temporary work permit was issued and was, I was assured, couriered to me. It didn't arrive in time for my flight, so my boss said she'd wait for me at immigration with another copy. (Turned out it had been put in regular mail at Christmastime).

On arrival, nobody to meet me at immigration, but the man there didn't make me pay a fine for having no paperwork. I hadn't been informed about the wonders of customs, and went through a long search. It took me two hours to get through formalities at the airport. My boss, who had promised to pick me up, was waiting outside to take me to my new home. Unfortunately, I had to pay for a taxi because there was no luggage space in a 2 seater car. During the ride home, I was informed that I would be starting work a week earlier than arranged, and handed files to read over the weekend ready for a client meeting. My boss dropped me off without even giving me directions to the office. No welcome tour then. Fortunately, I was lucky to have a lovely Bermudian roommate, who took on that duty because she was so appalled at my boss's non-welcome.

Reporting to work, I found I had to share a pc and had no desk. We were due to move 'soon.' just as well, since I also shared a chair. I was given 5 minutes instruction (including interruptions of 4 minutes). From then on, if anything I did was not deemed to be perfect, I was reprimanded in front of my colleagues. My co-worker, also new, had much the same treatment.

We moved into a place that needed renovating. I had to be cockroach monitor, ridding the office of critters before the others would step inside. I had to fix the network every time BTC did something (I'm a PR for chrissakes). The concrete dust was so thick I had to resort to increasingly odd measures to be clean when I left for client meetings. And try conducting business calls when someone's cutting concrete next to you. For more than a week, there was no door on the bathroom, and so the builders would often wander by to find me with my pants around my ankles. As would the postman and BTC guy.

The client billing was such that I would have fired any agency reporting to me that used those methods. I and my coworker were instructed to lie to clients about work done and results (I refused and knew my days were numbered). I learned some interesting ideas about race and about client relations (they all need to be told what to do). My boss would expect me to work almost every evening and weekend day, and didn't take it well when I said no. She especially found 'urgent' evening work if she knew I had a date.

We eventually lost a major client and there was less work. I was instructed to be unhelpful and withhold work paid for by the client during the handover period (I gave them the work anyway, they'd paid $150 an hour for it after all). She would plot how she could make the new person fail and try to involve us. Still, with less work, the witch hunt intensified. In the end, I was fired for attaching a file (approved) that was not the final version in an email to a client. I could have simply covered it up but thought it was more professional to put it right.

Not satisfied, my no ex-boss told some clients that she fired me because I was incompetent and couldn't be trusted to deal with clients. With another, who was furious that she had let me go, she implied I had been sleeping with a client (You would have to know my clients to understand why that was so funny). She didn't pay my salary for the final month, nor in lieu of notice. I took her to Labour Relations and they got her to pay my salary at least (minus deductions, not all of which were correct of course). She claimed she'd fired me for poor performance but agreed she had not given written warnings. She made a list of my purported transgressions. Fortunately, I was able to show my performance review, signed by my boss, dated after the 'transgressions', giving excellent scores. Oops.  However, if I am to reclaim the pay in lieu of notice, flight costs etc, I have to take her to court. If I get a dozy magistrate, or one who's her aunty/cousin/friend etc, I'd end up paying costs. Maybe I'll do it anyway. When Labour Relations told her she'd have to pay me the money, she asked if she could get me to work the three months.

Sorry, a long tale... and that only skims the surface of the horrors. I still keep in touch with a couple of former clients and they are friends now. However, as an expat, it is very difficult to get justice in these cases.

Hey Reality,

Thanks for sharing.  I'm sorry to say that I've heard similar stories. 

Giving you a karma point hardly seem compensation.  May your real karma bring the rewards you so richly deserve.

I am new to this forum but not new to the issues being addressed.

I left the UK for Bermuda 19 years ago after meeting a man for an interview on a Saturday lunchtime in a pub, two hundred miles away in the middle of nowhere. Honest! There were over 50 applicants and I think because I turned up for the interview I got the job at a guest-house on Hamilton Harbour. The staff were pleasant enough and the food and accommodation were good.  After Hurricane Emily in September 1987 I moved to the company?s major property on South Shore. Although I eventually had more responsibility and better pay, the food and accommodation was awful. The management was really bad, with very little or no regard for staff. As long as they fleeced their clientele for as many bucks as possible they were happy.
   
I was fortunate to get a good job with the Bermuda Government and later by chance and reputation, a rather senior position. The job was well paid and very challenging, certainly the best post I have been in. I left in late 1998 as I had nearly done tens years with Government and did not want my pension ?locked in?. Another more important reasons for wanting to apply for contract renewal was that the PLP had become the ruling party. Pressure was on for Bermudianisation of posts held by ex-pats. Fair enough, as a Brit I understood this. The Department had taken initiative to send a couple of Bermudians to the UK for training. As the colleges here in the UK need to put ?bums on seats? I am sure the Bermudian cash was greatly welcomed, even if candidates were not of the expected calibre for the courses. My post was filled by a Bermudian but that is not the end of the story. Four years later the old job is advertised in the professions main journal. I know two people who applied and one who took the time off work (coincidently I worked with him but did not know he had applied, he did not know my past!) to travel to London for the interview with the Departments Director (I had worked for her) and someone on a junket from the HR. The rub is - my colleague did not hear anything from the Department, they did not even have the courtesy to acknowledge his attendance at the interview or anything. After contacting them in Bermuda he was fed a load of b******s, about  ?a decision?.  I believed this to be fairly typical of their working practices.

However, during the early 1990?s I changed section for a year (there was no Bermudian to take this rather specialised job). Whilst reading the same professional journal, I found a rather upsetting letter by a father stating how shabbily his daughter had been treated by the Bermuda Government, in offering her a firm position, then cancelling the decision. I had unknowingly had taken the post that had been lined up for her, I was gutted. When I think of the Bermuda Government?s recruitment and staff development practices the words ?p**s up? and ?brewery? come to mind. Hopefully it has improved in recent years or I cannot imagine what it is like now.

On the positive side I met and married a Brit nanny in Bermuda and had children born there. I had only planned to go for the winter in 1986 then come home, well I fell into the laid back life of Bermuda and doors opened for me. Before I left, I had been fortunate in being offered a job in the UK by an American company, used by the Department in Bda. I arrived home on the Sunday morning and started at one of their UK offices on the Monday.

Before I left I was a bit fearful about being able to adapt to living back in ?civilisation? to be honest, I soon adjusted and so did the family. It was sad to leave our many friends, especially in St. Georges. But we have seen a good number of them in recent years. In our small town are two people who have worked on the Island.

Since our standard of life has improved, having choice, paying a fair price for goods, better food, better service in shops and banks and better driving standards. Although not as well paid and taxed, we live in a country I am certainly proud to call home. I am British and felt a bit uncomfortable intruding into Bermudian life; I was an ex-pat - that was to be expected and it is ?their Island?.

There was certainly a noticeable downturn in recognition for what we had to offer after Alex Scott took the helm, things sometimes became unpleasant at work. I did work with many people who I have possibly helped and appreciated my efforts.


Regrets on working in Bermuda?  - none. I would do it all again.

Regrets on leaving Bermuda?  ? none.

If in any doubt and you have little or no personal responsibility ? go for it.

However, do not step off the aircraft with too high an expectation of what is to come.

Hey Reality....can I give those a squeeze?

Slowhand, good for you for being part of the welcoming programme - and I love listening to Bermudians who can tell good stories about the country and its history. Sounds like your present company is getting it right - and those efforts make a huge difference to new arrivals. These things -and worse - really do go on in this day & age. Unfortunately, there are some truly lacking in ethics/morals and the way the work permit system is set up, this is allowed to happen. The crazy thing is, don't the bad employers realise that, if they followed examples of those (such as yours) that make the effort to get it right, they would also win in the long run? There is a great business case for having happy staff rather than terrorised staff.

Boozer II, welcome back... and that is not a question I would answer except at the end of happy hour (where strangely I seem to be poured just enormous measures of rum).

Each person has different experiences here, and their own bias will determine how "bad" the Bermuda experience is.?

Although this site has a "memorable" name, the people here are generally not Bermuda "haters".?

The site provides a valve to blow off the pressure that builds up here.? Sometimes using an anonymous voice to shout out your frustration makes one feel better.?

Also, I've heard the expression, "loneliness is the malady of our age".? It is interesting to note, people feel lonely not because they want to know other people - but because they want other people to know them.

Hey Ex-Pat I will have to agree with you there on the money...  I will not lie, I certainly like my lifestyle here and it is because of the income that I bring in.  I know that I wouldn't have the same amount of wages if I went back home.