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it takes a while to adjust to a foreign country to make friends to make a home to become effective at work for many people the assignment is up very quickly some people feel they've barely settled in already on their way home [Music] thank you coming home there is excitement there's also apprehension you're not the same person you were when you left [Music] have changed you have a new perspective on the world world and on your country will there be a place for you and your company will your friends still be there what about home will it be the same as when you left coming back was the far worse culture shock than going very very hard much harder to come back than it was to go over traumatic to come back we're not prepared to have difficulty coming back to our own culture we've learned or most people do learn before they go out overseas something about the new place and they expect it to be difficult when they come back they've been separated from things that have gone on it's hard to make friends it's hard to break in it was hard to come back and this was a surprise to me you miss a great deal of what you've become accustomed to I mean you're you're your normal experiences now include a large element of the Forum it's difficult for people to make use of their experience when they come back they want to talk about it they feel changed and they don't know where to put that that interest to work for them when you come back to the States no one really cares about that they're just not interested in your experiences and how neat it was and wherever it was that you lived people didn't know what to do with us had we said we were moving from Fresno to the Bay Area people could have dealt with that oh my aunt Sally lives in Fresno you came from Tokyo oh and that end of conversation all of your accumulated culture shock for the years suddenly discharged when you get back to the United States and it is not as glorified as you have painted it in your memories there are a lot of myths that start developing while you're overseas about in quotes home it's better cleaner people come on time and it's really nicer and when you come back you find it's complex just as life was overseas we're just overwhelmed by how dirty the streets were in Germany we've gotten very easily accustomed to the fact the streets we kept meticulously clean the the filth which would never particularly noticed before while we lived in Boston really came as quite a surprise and not not a pleasant one you always think that America is better yeah always think that constantly nothing would be better than going home when you're overseas but then you get home and then you find out you want to go back overseas again I didn't want to leave because I had made all those new friends and everything you know I had a friend that was um he cried when I left we were so good friends re-entry phase may be particularly trying for children because they've changed so much themselves in the time that they've been gone and kids get their sense of identity from their peers the others around them and if the children coming back from overseas don't know what's being shown on television and they don't know what other kids are wearing or what the current slang is they can be very quickly ostracized by groups and it can be a minor crisis in the life of those children when you live overseas you get all of the tapes and Records two years later so we think it's all great and it's really fun to get all that music finally it's brand new to us and we come home we find out we made a boo-boo this is old stuff meeting friends overseas is the easiest thing in the entire world compared to coming home and trying to make friends um for one thing you're not up on the the right things to do you don't know the right words to say your slang words in teenage teenage worlds slang words are very important and if you don't know how to put them in the right order you're in big trouble on returning kids that have had an overseas experience usually found they didn't fit in they weren't like everybody else they were more sophisticated more mature they'd seen a lot more possibly more inquisitive about things and just more worldly I do feel very different from people who haven't been outside the country before you don't want to talk too much about it because they think it's bragging they needed to know that when they got to got back nobody cared um but they were going to have to fit in that it was up to them to make it and um they could sort of keep that experience but not flaunted the spouse also goes through a considerable Readjustment period in coming back similar to the one that he or she went through overseas families going abroad they're frequently invited out as guests of honor and they're treated very royally and when they go back home they're just like everyone else and it's hard getting used to being another person on the Block kind of thing back home there is certainly a need to re-establish one's identity in the new community and be recognized for competence for being able to make a contribution in that community and it's hard for the spouse to to find that place again there is no support group when you move into a new community everybody has their established patterns their friends and you know there's not a whole lot of Need for you you you have to every day spend your time today I'm going to meet I'm going to make an effort overseas people made the effort for you people everybody could remember being new and the struggles and so everybody was more than helpful the other thing is with paychecks and uh that sometimes that's a shock because uh when naturally you're getting your what are they called all these little well you get subsidies you get your housing subsidized did your children go to a good school they all their schooling gets paid you perhaps get a cost of living allowance when you're down there so all of a sudden you know your salary may be doubled preps from your base salary you get back in the United States you come back here and it's halved and you get a hell of a shock just as the move overseas challenges individuals in a family differently so the move back does the employee May return to an organization that doesn't make use of what he or she has learned and done overseas oftentimes there's not a meaningful place of assignment in the home company when the person returns there's they're not sure quite what to do with them they don't understand the skills that the working spouse is coming back with and so they're not sure how to use that working spouse when you re-enter people kind of have to learn to know you a little bit they have to understand that yeah you've been out there for five or six years you're kind of frightening to them overseas you've been a a really big fish you know and you've had a lot of responsibility supervising a lot of people making a lot of decisions for the for the offices but when you come home you find it very frustrating that you can't make the decisions you used to make and you have to rely on other people's information and insights as well this is still the home office and this is where the really big business decisions are made this is where the action is I have a very good friend who's just come in who just can't understand how come he still doesn't have his private office set up and he's having a struggle with it but he's having to struggle with a lot of things and you're trying to re-enter the job Work Market at the same time with the same company he's worked for for 10 years and people have forgotten him preparing for re-entry is a little bit like preparing for old age uh you don't start when you're 70. uh you start before you you reach that point and the preparation for re-entry should be part of the whole cycle of moving overseas at the time that an individual leaves the United States to go overseas that's when you start thinking about coming back say goodbye to the important people here and not lead them to expect that we're going to be back oh you know next week or something it's a long time and they're going to change we're going to change so we're not promising things we can't live up to which then they resent and we pay for it when we get home before you go overseas one of the things that you as an employee should do is to find a Godfather a mentor who will look out for your interests while you're overseas will make sure that you're kept abreast of changes in the corporate structure will make sure that your name pops up periodically in discussions hey yo just had a letter from Joe and he it's doing marvelously in Timbuktu hey really we should think about him in a couple of years insist that you have with your broad excellent means of communicating with people back home both in the home office and socially so that you can continue to get reports continue to get information of what's Happening back home and you need to have a way that you continually have your input into the political Arena within the organization while we're overseas a number of things we can do first be conscious of the ways in which we are changing Behavior the way we see ourselves in the world our attitudes and keep the People Back Home People important to us up to date on our thinking feeling as we're going through it keep them in touch with us but also ask them about their lives stay in touch with them because they too are going through important changes one of the bits of water I insisted of myself is to write two letters a week one to my office which gave the official version of what was going on and one to press 15 20 members of my family which gave the completely unvarnished uh candid version with all the the pluses and minuses present the successes that I'm having over here and the things that I'm learning here are the new skills I've got here's some new insight I've gained by being abroad then it's those kinds of informations that might serve to help people back home understand what a tremendous resource this person is going to be when they come back be very careful in some of your financial planning not to overload yourself so if you came in and didn't have the position you thought you were going to have that you were financially overextended I've seen that happen find out within the direct time period before one comes back what it is you should know about what is the price of Real Estate where am I going to live where am I going to put my child in school what is the job market for the spouse looking like right now doesn't mean that you really do that much about it but you start getting the information together just before coming back again say goodbye to your local friends because if you have adapted to the culture and really been effective you will have people to say goodbye to again an international life is one of constant hellos and goodbyes coming back you have to reset your expectation you're going to have to fit in you're going to be interested in other people around you and that makes my name is going overseas I mean you can't be comparing now the way it used to be you can't be always talking about that environment it's not going to be the way it was it's the way it is and you have to learn to adjust to that so it's it's it's reverse culture shock it's you have to do the same thing again you have to move into a new culture think through what you went through during your initial adjustment overseas what worked what didn't it's a stressful situation certain things helped you certain things did not learn from that because those very things that helped you there will help you when you come home because home is new changed while you've been away we come back from an international assignment and we're very excited about everything that's happened to us and that we've learned and that we've seen and that we've done and we've brought all these artifacts back and we want to share them distill the essence of the overseas experience and come up with one or two things of real significance to you that you will convey to the people who are important to you here they're not going to listen for hours to you they're not going to see your hundreds of spots but at least be very sure that this one thing it was significant to you they do understand there's connection at that one point and let's don't assume that we are the people who have had the exciting time we are the people who have something to say before we say anything at all to them let's just stop and listen to them they have been through two years three years important years of their lives let's ask them what's happened to them and ask them again and really listen before we start accounting our adventures overseas [Music] foreign [Music]