Please sell your house within a month, leave your family and friends behind, and go work for your company in a strange, hot country 4622 kilometres away.
To most people this may sound like a rather frightening challenge, but Christian Rich-Byberg was not in doubt, when he was offered a two-year contract to work for COWI in Qatar.
"It is the dream and challenge of an electrical engineer with multi-discipline projects running into the million-dollar price class. So although it's hard to leave family and friends behind, I was never really in doubt," says Christian Rich-Byberg.
At home abroad
Living far from Denmark is nothing new for the 32-year-old engineer. At the age of four, he and his parents moved to Lesotho where he spent his childhood before returning to Denmark at the age of 17.
In 2007 he finished his engineering degree in Copenhagen and almost immediately landed a job with COWI.
In March 2008 Christian Rich-Byberg moved with his American wife and their two children to Qatar. And after only a few months abroad he doesn't hesitate to encourage others to take up the challenge of moving to the Middle East.
The secret of success "If you have not been to the Middle East before, everything is very different. So, if you are expecting a Western lifestyle, you will be disappointed. Instead, you should be prepared for an exciting adventure."
Once the decision of moving is taken, it’s important to have the family in the same frame of mind, according to Christian Rich-Byberg.
"A well-planned expatriation is crucial to success. The accompanying spouse may be leaving a good job behind and the daily life will become very different from the daily routine, which is often a stand still in comparison to the expatriation. It’s important that both parties are aware and prepared to accept this change."
