Looking back, I realize that this was an immersion experience in the global economy, an introduction to a layer of culture dedicated solely to profit unmoored from concern for any specific geographic community. It was a subtly disturbing experience—the disorientation from jet lag, the time away from friends and family, the unseemly forms of persuasion used with key customers, encounters with corporate travel junkies who seemed more at home on the road than with their families, the high divorce rates among the expatriate community in Brussels, the lack of any purpose beyond profit, life in a rigid hierarchy, the bewildering scale of the organization I worked for and the often pointless work.

***

This article was originally published in the Spring | Summer 2011 issue of Kosmos Journal. The entire article can be downloaded as a PDF here.