New... are we crazy?? Anyone ever relocated having never visited?

[Guest]

Apart from the Snakes, the Spiders, the Crocodiles .... (Not that I've seen any of them in the 4 years I've been here, but just saying)

 

That's not the scary part! The locals scared me far more than the wildlife!

 

Actually not saying it's scary and don't disagree the OP should 'give it a go' but to suggest it is not a foreign country is plain wrong. It is far more foreign than any European country I've visited though, and I pretty much only visited major cities and tourist areas. I suspect a small rural town would be even more 'foreign'.

 

Culture shock is normal and to be expected when moving to Australia and can easily be mistaken for 'homesickness' especially if you arrive thinking it's 'Britain in the sun'

[CiderDrinkingCoder]

I think the shock's more likely going to be down to the fact that there's culture. I went home to Kilmarnock to visit the folks a few weeks ago... I see the West Country going the same sad way, unfortunately. The UK is just no place for young people with ambition, anymore.

[Quinkla]

Don't worry about it. Oz is so easy. It's hardly a foreign country - you will feel at home in no time.

Australia may have a superficially familiar feel (same language, lots of people of British heritage, etc.) but it is actually very different. People behave differently, they think differently, they even move differently (I was forever bumping into people when I first came here because they moved in unexpected ways). The working culture is way different; customer service culture is different; journalism is different. I have been here six years now - I am much better at fitting in now than when I first came here. But I am still paying the price in career terms of mistakes I made in my first year and a half based on the misapprehension that things were just like Britain.

[Paul1Perth]

Er..I can't quite tell if this is sarcasm, it not it's the worst possible advice - Australia is a very different country to the UK, if it wasn't there would be little point moving there, if it wasn't most people would be better staying in the UK.

 

Going there expecting it to be 'Britain in the sun' is a sure way to end up very unhappy! Unless of course you live in a suburb surrounded by other poms, work in one of the trades/professions with a lot of poms and have BBQ's at the weekend with other poms congratulating one another on how fortunate you are because you have a pool in your garden. My idea of hell but each to their own.

I think I know where he's coming from. When we got here, in February, the only thing that felt really different was the weather. Everyone spoke English, driving on the left side of the road, a feeling of things being organised and safe. We had loads of holidays abroad and felt like we were further from the UK just over the channel.

Would have been a lot harder to settle anywhere in the rest of Europe. Otherwise we would have just gone to Portugal.

[Foxes]

Australia may have a superficially familiar feel (same language, lots of people of British heritage, etc.) but it is actually very different. People behave differently, they think differently, they even move differently (I was forever bumping into people when I first came here because they moved in unexpected ways). The working culture is way different; customer service culture is different; journalism is different. I have been here six years now - I am much better at fitting in now than when I first came here. But I am still paying the price in career terms of mistakes I made in my first year and a half based on the misapprehension that things were just like Britain.

How would you say it's different in the workplace/customer service etc, I am interested in this side of things

 

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[Quinkla]

How would you say it's different in the workplace/customer service etc

In terms of workplace, it is less collaborative. Colleagues will compete against one another even to the extent of sabotaging each others' work. Hierarchy does not count for much; people don't do what the boss says, just because the boss is in charge. Everything has to be done by persuasion. People don't stick to agreements and will pretend that agreements were never reached, even when presented with written evidence to the contrary. Jobs seem less secure and there is a perpetual turnover in staff when the annual re-structuring takes place. Staff will not help a manager, even when it is obvious that a manager is making a mistake. Bullying is rampant and pretty much accepted. Careers can go down as well as up.

 

In terms of customer service; it stops the moment you have signed on the dotted line. The smiles will fade and if you haven't got what you wanted or expected, tough. There is little desire to remedy a situation. Complaints tend to be met with denials. Compensation never happens and you have to go to court for it. There is an Australian Consumer Law but you have to quote it to get anyone to give you what you are entitled to, and even then, some companies will just refuse or delay things. Especially as a new migrant, people will see you as fair game for being ripped off.

[Paul1Perth]

In terms of workplace, it is less collaborative. Colleagues will compete against one another even to the extent of sabotaging each others' work. Hierarchy does not count for much; people don't do what the boss says, just because the boss is in charge. Everything has to be done by persuasion. People don't stick to agreements and will pretend that agreements were never reached, even when presented with written evidence to the contrary. Jobs seem less secure and there is a perpetual turnover in staff when the annual re-structuring takes place. Staff will not help a manager, even when it is obvious that a manager is making a mistake. Bullying is rampant and pretty much accepted. Careers can go down as well as up.

 

In terms of customer service; it stops the moment you have signed on the dotted line. The smiles will fade and if you haven't got what you wanted or expected, tough. There is little desire to remedy a situation. Complaints tend to be met with denials. Compensation never happens and you have to go to court for it. There is an Australian Consumer Law but you have to quote it to get anyone to give you what you are entitled to, and even then, some companies will just refuse or delay things. Especially as a new migrant, people will see you as fair game for being ripped off.

You must have worked in some pretty dire places! What profession are you in?

I work in IT, comms and engineering, same sort of work I was doing in the UK and the workplace is remarkably similar. Sorry you had such a bad experience.

[Foxes]

In terms of workplace, it is less collaborative. Colleagues will compete against one another even to the extent of sabotaging each others' work. Hierarchy does not count for much; people don't do what the boss says, just because the boss is in charge. Everything has to be done by persuasion. People don't stick to agreements and will pretend that agreements were never reached, even when presented with written evidence to the contrary. Jobs seem less secure and there is a perpetual turnover in staff when the annual re-structuring takes place. Staff will not help a manager, even when it is obvious that a manager is making a mistake. Bullying is rampant and pretty much accepted. Careers can go down as well as up.

 

In terms of customer service; it stops the moment you have signed on the dotted line. The smiles will fade and if you haven't got what you wanted or expected, tough. There is little desire to remedy a situation. Complaints tend to be met with denials. Compensation never happens and you have to go to court for it. There is an Australian Consumer Law but you have to quote it to get anyone to give you what you are entitled to, and even then, some companies will just refuse or delay things. Especially as a new migrant, people will see you as fair game for being ripped off.

Interesting, i'm in sales so sounds like a normal day at the office lol. Seriously though it's good to get a wide, honest picture instead of "the dream"

 

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[northshorepom]

In terms of workplace, it is less collaborative. Colleagues will compete against one another even to the extent of sabotaging each others' work. Hierarchy does not count for much; people don't do what the boss says, just because the boss is in charge. Everything has to be done by persuasion. People don't stick to agreements and will pretend that agreements were never reached, even when presented with written evidence to the contrary. Jobs seem less secure and there is a perpetual turnover in staff when the annual re-structuring takes place. Staff will not help a manager, even when it is obvious that a manager is making a mistake. Bullying is rampant and pretty much accepted. Careers can go down as well as up.

 

In terms of customer service; it stops the moment you have signed on the dotted line. The smiles will fade and if you haven't got what you wanted or expected, tough. There is little desire to remedy a situation. Complaints tend to be met with denials. Compensation never happens and you have to go to court for it. There is an Australian Consumer Law but you have to quote it to get anyone to give you what you are entitled to, and even then, some companies will just refuse or delay things. Especially as a new migrant, people will see you as fair game for being ripped off.

 

Customer service I agree to some extent - it's good on the friendliness front, but recompense for a mistake is a different story - attitude of "well, it's done now, what do you want me to do about it?" sort of thing

 

Workplace relationships? Don't see it like that at all. I'm very happy with the places I've worked and haven't seen any marked difference in terms of loyalty to the team, hierarchy, collaboration and so on. Good leadership is just psychology and that doesn't change a lot regardless of cultural norms. But I do think this is very much industry specific; I could pick holes in the way my industry - infrastructure construction - works here (arrogance of government; loads of box-ticking compliance; weakness of front line supervision; onerous nature of contracts leading to many legal disputes; and on the positive side workcrews looking out for each other; openness to getting the job done) in reference to other places but the way the PEOPLE relate to each other isn't a whole lot different

[Diane]

I think you said you had three young children - don't forget you'll be leaving any hope of family babysitters behind!

 

Other than that, if the salary and package meets expectations, and you don't burn any major bridges behind you, go for it!

[Phoenix16]

In terms of workplace, it is less collaborative. Colleagues will compete against one another even to the extent of sabotaging each others' work. Hierarchy does not count for much; people don't do what the boss says, just because the boss is in charge. Everything has to be done by persuasion. People don't stick to agreements and will pretend that agreements were never reached, even when presented with written evidence to the contrary. Jobs seem less secure and there is a perpetual turnover in staff when the annual re-structuring takes place. Staff will not help a manager, even when it is obvious that a manager is making a mistake. Bullying is rampant and pretty much accepted. Careers can go down as well as up.

 

In terms of customer service; it stops the moment you have signed on the dotted line. The smiles will fade and if you haven't got what you wanted or expected, tough. There is little desire to remedy a situation. Complaints tend to be met with denials. Compensation never happens and you have to go to court for it. There is an Australian Consumer Law but you have to quote it to get anyone to give you what you are entitled to, and even then, some companies will just refuse or delay things. Especially as a new migrant, people will see you as fair game for being ripped off.

 

Sounds like a place I worked in Freo! Scarred me for life and made me decide to get a degree and re-train. Bullying was rampant, it was a charitable NGO, the top level were very focused on job titles (CEO, COO, CFO...), executive parking spaces, company cars, free petrol. The hierarchy was very very top heavy, if you were 'in' you got promoted, rapidly, the moment you stepped outside the box, you were toast and gone. Attrition levels were shocking, turnover was unbelievable, Tony Abbot vowed to disband this type of 'Charitable' but heavily funded organisation on getting into power, ultimately he did, he was absolutely correct. Budgets for some very key services in Freo, particularly health wise for the disadvantaged was very seriously compromised to keep these precious 'executives' happy.

[Jennet]

In terms of workplace, it is less collaborative. Colleagues will compete against one another even to the extent of sabotaging each others' work. Hierarchy does not count for much; people don't do what the boss says, just because the boss is in charge. Everything has to be done by persuasion. People don't stick to agreements and will pretend that agreements were never reached, even when presented with written evidence to the contrary. Jobs seem less secure and there is a perpetual turnover in staff when the annual re-structuring takes place. Staff will not help a manager, even when it is obvious that a manager is making a mistake. Bullying is rampant and pretty much accepted. Careers can go down as well as up.

 

In terms of customer service; it stops the moment you have signed on the dotted line. The smiles will fade and if you haven't got what you wanted or expected, tough. There is little desire to remedy a situation. Complaints tend to be met with denials. Compensation never happens and you have to go to court for it. There is an Australian Consumer Law but you have to quote it to get anyone to give you what you are entitled to, and even then, some companies will just refuse or delay things. Especially as a new migrant, people will see you as fair game for being ripped off.

 

I agree with some information you have mentioned, I have never seen work place bullying as bad as i have witnessed in Australia, its a concern and no matter what is mentioned it never gets any better. It's disturbing to a point when it becomes a workplace culture. Yep and good careers can go down hill fast, ive experienced it.

[Marisawright]

It is far more foreign than any European country I've visited though, and I pretty much only visited major cities and tourist areas. I suspect a small rural town would be even more 'foreign'.

 

 

Having recently returned to the UK and done a fair bit of visiting around Europe in the last year, I would agree.

 

Even though most people know they're not coming to Britain in the sun, I think most people subconsciously expect it to be similar because (a) the language is the same and (b) Australia had such a long history of British migration. So it's a shock to find that it's as foreign as moving to, say, Austria or Italy or Sweden. Yes, you know the language, but everything else is different!

[Parley]

Of course it is different. That is why so many Brits dream of coming here.

[CiderDrinkingCoder]

Damn right, Parleycross. Damn right!

[Kenfrapin]

As many have said, nope you arent crazy but it's fair to feel you are doing a crazy thing.

 

We have never been before, spent good money on assessments, an agent and the visas while we now wait. We do have a trip planned but as many have said before, even a visit for few weeks to a month cannot give you a true picture of how life will be. It may help you get a better understanding of the areas you want to be in, what to expect in terms of service and people around, how the houses look from the outside, how tidy the towns and streets are..............but that's it.

 

The fun starts when you drop your bags and tell yourself that you have arrived :wink:

And that's exactly what we are doing, leave fantastic jobs, sell our beautiful home, take that flight and never look back

 

All the best

KnK

[Marisawright]

Of course it is different. That is why so many Brits dream of coming here.

 

Agreed, but the differences often aren't the ones they are hoping for! They focus on the differences in the weather and work/life balance - but when they get here, they discover a lot of other differences that they just haven't anticipated, like sense of humour, workplace culture, perceptions of what's polite and what isn't, attitudes to life, driving, types of food, etc.

 

Not saying any of those things are better or worse. I prefer living in Australia myself. Just that they ARE all different, and that comes as a surprise to people.

[tea4too]

Having heard so much from family and friends happily living in Aus, I fully expected our first visit to be enough for us to start the visa ball rolling, but it didn’t happen. We had a great holiday and that was it – a good holiday and a chance to catch up with family and friends. When the time came we were happy to return home, and those feelings haven’t changed after several visits.

Aus offers a different lifestyle, but with a good life in the UK we discovered we weren’t looking to trade. I’m not sure we would have worked that out for certain without visiting first. T x

[Guest]

Agreed, but the differences often aren't the ones they are hoping for! They focus on the differences in the weather and work/life balance - but when they get here, they discover a lot of other differences that they just haven't anticipated, like sense of humour, workplace culture, perceptions of what's polite and what isn't, attitudes to life, driving, types of food, etc.

 

Not saying any of those things are better or worse. I prefer living in Australia myself. Just that they ARE all different, and that comes as a surprise to people.

 

Agree entirely and for many of those things no amount of 'research' is going to prepare you - reading about it isn't the same as experiencing it. And it takes a while before it becomes apparent so I don't think a holiday prepares you at all.

 

And of course the things you expect may turn out not to be the positives you imagined - we found the weather didn't suit our lifestyle and our work/life balance was no better, if anything marginally worse!

 

For the OP though this is not some sought after dream, it;s an opportunity that has come up and I'd be grabbing it with both hands, just make sure the door back remains open.

[Foxes]

Interesting x

 

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[Marisawright]

And of course the things you expect may turn out not to be the positives you imagined - we found the weather didn't suit our lifestyle and our work/life balance was no better, if anything marginally worse!

 

 

 

We're very alike in that respect! My oh turns out to be allergic to the sun, and I'd have to say corporate life in Sydney has no work/life balance whatsoever!

[JockinTas]

Having heard so much from family and friends happily living in Aus, I fully expected our first visit to be enough for us to start the visa ball rolling, but it didn’t happen. We had a great holiday and that was it – a good holiday and a chance to catch up with family and friends. When the time came we were happy to return home, and those feelings haven’t changed after several visits.

Aus offers a different lifestyle, but with a good life in the UK we discovered we weren’t looking to trade. I’m not sure we would have worked that out for certain without visiting first. T x

 

My sister-in-law who was born in Australia went back to the UK as a young child. She has visited us here on numerous occasions but she wouldn't live here. She has a very comfortable life in the UK and is settled happily there. Same with my friends and my sister who come for visits. They do enjoy Australia but because they have good lives in the UK, have no interest in living here. Me, I'm happy here and have had a good life too and have no interest in moving back to the UK.