English Compass Podcast: odcinek 1

Posłuchaj tutaj:

Workation

[The plane taking off.] Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. 

Hi, guys. Cześć, tu Asia Domagała, Twój kompas w świecie nauki języka angielskiego. Ta audycja ma pomóc Ci w rozwoju Twojego angielskiego oraz umiejętności słuchania ze zrozumieniem. Przy okazji poznasz także ciekawe informacje, nie tylko ze świata językowego. Odcinki przeznaczone są dla osób od poziomu B1 w górę i są w stu procentach po angielsku.

*** 

Let’s go. This is episode number one of my English Compass Podcast, and it’s going to be about workation and its ups and downs. So let me start with the differences between certain important terms. Let’s start with the terminology related to workation. There are four major words or expressions that you might need to know and differentiate when it comes to this topic.

It’s remote work, workation, digital nomad, and expats. Let’s start with remote work. Remote work is just working outside the traditional office setting, often from home or other locations. It’s typically associated with fixed employment and with employees adhering to company policies and schedules. So, it’s simply about not working from a traditional office. The second term is workation, something I did in the beginning of 2024, which is a blend of work and vacation, where people work remotely while enjoying leisure activities. It’s usually a short-term arrangement and a different, often very scenic location. Now, mind you two things when it comes to workation. Vacation is actually American English word; in the United Kingdom you may quite more often come across holidays. So workation as such is more American than British. But of course, I’m sure that every single British person understands what workation is.

So, workation is a combination of work and vacation. You go somewhere where you have beautiful, marvelous views outside of your window, and at the same time, you simply work depending on your needs, whether half a day or just a couple of hours a day. It’s a combination of both. 

Now, the third term we need to know is a digital nomad. I think it’s completely different from the first two. Digital nomads simply embrace a location-independent lifestyle. They work remotely while travelling extensively. So, it’s not workation and it’s not only remote work because digital nomads often change locations while working. It’s quite often used by freelancers, entrepreneurs, or simply remote employees with very high work and location flexibility. And with that, I also mean the time differences that go along. Digital nomads are people who, for example, for three months work from Spain, then move to Portugal, and then move to Iceland, or the United States. So, they simply work wherever they are, not necessarily always in scenic locations. 

The last, fourth term that I would like you to know is expat: an individual who lives and works in a foreign country, typically on a long-term or permanent basis. And it’s usually employment tied to a specific location and company in the host country. So, let’s say that there is a company in the United Arab Emirates, and they ask you to come because you’re a highly qualified specialist – you sign a contract with that company for two years. So, you make an obligation, you promise to work for them for at least two years until the contract is over. And that makes you an expat because you work and live in a foreign country on a long-term or permanent basis. 

Now, knowing those four concepts, those four terms, I think it’s good to say that the concept of workation as such, which is the topic of this podcast, has gained popularity in recent years, allowing individuals to work remotely from various holiday destinations.

As you know, I have already done it myself. In the beginning of this year I worked and had vacations, or holidays I should say, in Thailand. I would say that Bali, which was my first destination at the end of December 2023, was not proper workation because we didn’t work that much. It was more like holidays because we used the opportunity of the entire world, or let’s say Poland, having a longer break between Christmas and the 6th of January, so we simply had holidays; but the rest four weeks were definitely a proper workation. 

Now, people, instead of taking time off, continue to work while enjoying a change of scenery. This is another essence of workation. This trend emerged during the pandemic. Let’s face it, as  remote work became feasible even from afar.

Workation offered the chance to balance work and leisure but they come with challenges. And those challenges, I would like you to know as well, but let’s start with the ups of workation, with the bright sides of working remotely from a scenic location. 

First of all, of course, it’s an opportunity to gain some new experiences. You know, discovering new cultures, a totally different environment. And both can be really, truly enriching, and inspiring because they also provide you, with a fresh perspective for work. The second point I would say is increased productivity, generally speaking, because in my case, it was… Let’s say, that it was indeed ups and downs when it comes to my productivity when I was working from Thailand. Generally, getting the ball rolling in a relaxed setting often leads to heightened productivity, which also makes the tasks seem a little bit lighter. I would say like a breeze. Indeed, they do. I would definitely agree. But… this also showed me that when having workation, I really care about something that takes us to point number three, which is work-life balance. Because even though my productivity was increased, indeed, I really, really was lazy at times and I cared more about my leisure time than my work time.

And indeed, the work-life balance is a huge bright side, a huge up, a huge advantage of workation wherever you are, because you simply focus more on what’s outside of your window rather than work. It indeed fosters a sense of harmony in your day-to-day life. I, at least, haven’t thought that much about work. Of course, we worked. When you have your own business, when you run your own company, it’s simply impossible not to look at your email inbox at least once a day and sometimes do something with what you can see there. But both of us, me and my husband, definitely did only the things that were a must. We postponed things that we knew did not require our immediate attention when we were there. We preferred to go to the beach, we preferred to go on another trip, on island hopping, go snorkeling, or you know, have another portion of morning glory in my case or something different. We simply enjoyed the location we were in. Work-life balance is definitely there when it comes to the bright sides.

Now, another point I would say is that it helps you to grow. It’s a matter of personal growth for sure. Going the extra mile by challenging yourself in a new environment can lead to very substantial personal growth and development. It helps you get out of your comfort zone and tackle whatever needs to be dealt with. And it’s definitely helpful for your personal growth. 

And then cost-effectiveness would be the last one. And because some destinations, like Thailand, offer a lower cost of living, making workation an affordable option, especially for those who seek adventure without breaking the bank. Thailand is definitely a cost-effective option. Yet, I would underline at this point that ten years ago when we visited Thailand for the first time, it was very cheap. Now when you try hard, it’s cheap, but it’s definitely not very cheap anymore. You need to try hard in order to find something that is cheap but at the same time high quality. There are more and more locations, places, restaurants, hotels that are really expensive. So now it’s a matter of going the extra mile as well as finding the right places to make it an affordable option. But, but, but it’s still very possible. 

And now, let’s move on to the downside; the disadvantages, the dark sides of workation because they also exist. And I would lie if I said they didn’t.

The first one is time zone differences. Dealing with time-zone differences can be indeed challenging, especially for remote teams or meetings or definitely customers being at a different location. Now, even though for Thailand it’s “only” six hours difference, we dealt with it pretty well in a sense that we usually woke up at 7 a.m. In my case with an alarm clock, because I’m not an early bird; for my husband no alarm clock needed. At 7:00 am, we had breakfast and then we headed to the beach. We spent something like 5 to 6 hours at the beach, and then we returned to a hotel or apartment around one. And we started working from around 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

And that’s mainly because 2 in the afternoon our time was 8 a.m. in Poland. For my husband, it was crucial because 8 a.m. meant the beginning of work and he runs an online shop. So the staff that he left working in Poland alone needed his support. And for me, it also meant classes, which I still have from time to time, but also other meetings and things that needed my attention.

So it wasn’t that bad. But it also meant that for example, the moment we went to sleep, we couldn’t be contacted. And for me, it also meant that I couldn’t have afternoon meetings, not to mention evening meetings online or live on Instagram or anything like that. So, time zone differences can be a pain in the neck.

Another point I would underline when it comes to the dark sides would be kind of an infrastructure / internet because, indeed, some destinations may have unreliable internet connections or limited infrastructure. When we were searching for hotels or flats that we wanted to rent for the time being, we always looked at how the internet and general electricity was reviewed by the customers, what was the rating for internet connection. Because you know, once the internet is poor, then we knew that it’s a no-go because we needed a reliable internet connection. So, this can be indeed somehow excluding for certain locations. 

We, for example, didn’t go to Ko Pha-ngan Island, which we really love. We visited the island in 2014, so ten years ago and we really loved it. This small island. Not that many tourists, at least back then, but we were afraid about electricity/internet connection because it’s always more difficult and challenging on the island. Phuket is a huge island and it has a very advanced infrastructure, which for some can be a disadvantage as well as such, but we knew that for us it’s a pretty good thing because it allowed us to have the access to good Wi-Fi. 

Another issue that can be a pain in the neck is basically issues related to legal requirements and visas. So navigating through visa regulations or tax implications, can be indeed a burden, especially if you work somewhere longer.

In our case, the tax implications were not the case because we didn’t spend that much time abroad. But I know that for some people it is, and the visa regulations or other legal regulations can also be sometimes, well, time-consuming and not something that, you know, usually people are fond of. 

Another dark side of our workation, and a matter of a personal perspective because to me, it’s really huge. I think if I was to make it a ranking of downsides, of disadvantages of workation, this would be number one, because I hate insects and I hate any kind of bugs. Small creatures just crawling on the floor or anything, and anywhere else; I hate ants.

And in Thailand, quite often you, you come across ants; and we once stayed in one hotel for two weeks, 14 days, and in our apartment because it was more of an apartment than a room, ants were everywhere. And I was fighting them really fiercely. I did my best to eliminate them, but they always resurfaced.

They always reappeared. I know it’s a small thing, and I know that ants are small and generally insects are small but I hate them. Really. I have a lot of disdain in me for ants, and it reminds me of one thing that I found in one of the English file books when I had, a B2 group when I was teaching them.

One of the topics of the unit was, job interviews, and an article was about something which is called Extreme Interviews. And there was a question that was asked during one of those extreme interviews. And it was something like: “would you rather fight 1 horse-sized duck or a 100 duck-sized horses?” And for me, it’s always one horse-sized duck.

I really prefer to fight one huge opponent than 100 tiny ones. And it’s the same with ants, with insects, with anything that is tiny and has more than four legs. But it’s personal. I know that it doesn’t bother everyone, but it bothers me much, so it’s a huge downfall when it comes to going anywhere in Asia, probably. Well, but you know, honestly, in Poland you also come across insects like mosquitoes in summer, right?

Or ants in your home. You know, if you don’t pay attention to some hygienic aspect or anything related, or even if you do, they may appear. So, ants are everywhere. And I am fully aware of that. But I think in Thailand, because of the climate and everything, it’s simply more of that; but surprisingly, this time there were no mosquitoes.

So, no bites for me this time, because I’m always like, you know, ready meat to be eaten by mosquitoes everywhere I am. This time, not the case, so that’s lovely. But still, the ants were there. So all kinds of insects are always a big, big disadvantage. 

Another thing that can be a dark side of workation is English. English in the sense that there are places in the world where people cannot communicate English effectively.

And I’m saying effectively, like on purpose, because the fact that someone thinks they speak English doesn’t mean that it’s effective communication. And this is unfortunately the case in Thailand, because Thai as a language has a very specific and peculiar intonation, nothing like English or Polish or any language I know. And when Thais speak English, you might quite often not understand a single word, because even though they produce words that are correct with the accent they have from Thai and intonation that they take from Thai language it’s an absolute miscommunication.

And I found it really, really… Maybe not devastating, but really, really exhausting. After some time, if, you know, if you encounter such conversations for a week, it’s fine. But if you encounter such conversations after two, three and four weeks, it’s really, really tiring. So I was simply spent, sometimes after talking to Thai people. Not every single time, because it’s not that everyone has this intonation in English, but most of them do. It was simply tiring for me, and I really, really am good at listening. I can understand a lot when people speak English. It depending on their accent or intonation, where they come from, what is their mother tongue and so on. With Thai English, it was really a tough lesson for me. It was simply a challenge. 

Not to mention that in some locations people may not know English at all. So not even with their strong intonation, but generally know English. And then communication can be really tough, especially if you have to deal with a problem you have. If there is a problem you need to tackle and no one can speak English. Yeah, and it can be a nightmare. 

And last but not least, even though spending workation in such countries as Thailand can be cost-effective because generally a lot of Asian countries are simply cheaper than European countries. For me, workation meant also losing money because I couldn’t, for example, do training sessions in person. 

 And by the way, training as a noun in English is not countable. And if something is not countable, it means that first of all, you cannot use it in plural. So you will never say trainings because it’s incorrect grammatically. And secondly, you cannot use a or an in front of such a word. So you can never say a training is always just training and no plural. So if you want to say plural, talking about training and say training meeting, training session and so on, that’s why I said training sessions.

So, for me, workation always means losing the opportunity to train in person. I train higher education staff members, in most cases in intercultural communication and topics related to internationalization of higher education. I had to reject two offers of In-person Training. I could postpone the others, but not those two. So, I lost money twice and those training sessions could not be conducted online.

You know, pandemic is long over and people are not that willing to sit in front of screens again. They prefer to meet in a classroom. And I fully, fully support that because I also prefer to train in the classroom. But workation as you can see, can be sometimes also costing money. So I lost money as a result. So it’s not always just, you know, beautiful and scenic, but it’s sometimes also me not earning money.

Yeah. So that was about the disadvantages or the downs, the dark sides of workation. Well, you know, while workation may not be suitable for everyone, I’m sure about that, it undoubtedly represents a significant evolution in how we, individuals, approach our professional lives. And I think as technology continues to enable remote work, because I think it will, the workation trend is, I think, likely to persist.

It may also offer a unique and flexible way for individuals to redefine the traditional boundaries between work and leisure. Are we going to have another workation next year, just like we did in 2024 and 2023? I don’t know, I’m not sure. We still need to consider different aspects of workation. One thing is sure: we will not go to Thailand again.

So, we went to Thailand in 23. We went in 24. We will not go in 25. Whether we will go somewhere else for workation or not… I can’t say because we have to discuss that among ourselves and well, do a kind of a brainstorming on what is best, what we want and what we don’t want. Because having spent two workations already abroad, we have certain conclusions.

But I’m not sharing them with you yet because, I think we still need to digest them on our own. So, Stay tuned. I’m sure I will share those thoughts with you sooner or later. 

Dziękuję za wysłuchanie tego odcinka. Daj koniecznie znać w komentarzu jak Ci się podobało, czy byłaś/eś kiedyś podobnie na jakimś workation, albo czy pracowałaś/eś zdalnie. Czy jesteś może digital nomad. Daj mi koniecznie znać w komentarzu. Zobacz też w opisie odcinka transkrypcję do tego odcinka oraz trudniejsze słówka, które dla Ciebie przygotowałam w formie słowniczka. 

Dziękuję za dzisiaj i do usłyszenia w kolejnym odcinku!

[Cabin-crew announcement for landing].

Słowniczek

  • Afford – pozwolić sobie (finansowo)
  • Blend – mieszanka
  • Challenging – wymagający, stanowiący wyzwanie
  • Conducted – przeprowadzony, przeprowadzać
  • Conclusions – wnioski, konkluzje
  • Countable – policzalny
  • Cost-effectiveness – opłacalność
  • Devastating – niszczycielski, niszczący
  • Digital nomad – cyfrowy nomada, osoba pracująca zdalnie podczas podróży
  • Emerged – pojawić się, wyłonić się
  • Effective – skuteczny, efektywny
  • Essence – istota, sedno
  • Evolution – ewolucja, rozwój
  • Excluding – wyłączając, pomijając
  • Exhausting – wyczerpujący, męczący
  • Expats – osoby mieszkające i pracujące w obcym kraju na dłuższy okres czasu
  • Feasible – wykonalny, realny
  • Fixed employment – stałe zatrudnienie
  • Foster – sprzyjać, pielęgnować
  • Harmony – harmonia, zgodność
  • Heightened productivity – zwiększona produktywność
  • Infrastructure – infrastruktura
  • Intonation – intonacja, akcent w wymowie
  • Legal requirements – wymogi prawne
  • Leisure activities – zajęcia rekreacyjne, czas wolny
  • Location-independent lifestyle – styl życia niezależny od lokalizacji
  • Miscommunication – błędna komunikacja
  • Nomad – koczownik, osoba podróżująca
  • Opportunity – okazja, szansa
  • Pandemic – pandemia
  • Personal growth – rozwój osobisty
  • Perspective – perspektywa, punkt widzenia
  • Persist – trwać, utrzymywać się
  • Peculiar – osobliwy, dziwny
  • Postpone – przełożyć
  • Regulations – przepisy, regulacje
  • Remote work – praca zdalna
  • Relevant – istotny, odnoszący się do tematu
  • Scenic – malowniczy
  • Signficant – znaczący, istotny
  • Tackle – uporać się, zmierzyć się
  • Tax implications – konsekwencje podatkowe
  • Time zone differences – różnice czasu
  • Traditional boundaries – tradycyjne granice
  • Unique – unikalny, wyjątkowy
  • Work-life balance – równowaga między pracą a życiem prywatnym
  • Workation – połączenie pracy i wakacji, praca zdalna w miejscach wypoczynkowych

Źródła efektów dźwiękowych zastosowanych w odcinku:

CB-RECORDS: “the flight – modern synthwave music” (source: https://pixabay.com/pl/music/synthwave-the-flight-modern-synthwave-music-125704/) VoiceBosch: “Commercial Pilot – “This is Your Captain Speaking” (source: https://pixabay.com/pl/sound-effects/commercial-pilot-quotthis-is-your-captain-speakingquot-168601/) Pixabay “180218 Airplane, in flight landing annoucement Westjet BAHAMAS” (source: https://pixabay.com/pl/sound-effects/180218-airplane-in-flight-landing-annoucement-westjet-bahamas-55191/)  “airplane landing” (source: https://pixabay.com/pl/sound-effects/airplane-landing-6732/)  u_hcge1gokkx “CALLS” (source: https://pixabay.com/pl/sound-effects/calls-190001/)