Working 9 to 5 (NOT!)

On August 8, 2026August 9, 2026 By Dani Francuz Rose1 Comment

One of the biggest challenges we face in trying to maintain this semi-nomadic lifestyle of ours is the constant job changes. It’s oddly something I don’t write about super often, but it is one of the questions I get asked most of all: “What do you do that allows you to live and move abroad over and over again?” Well, the truth is, we have done many things to make this happen, and this month, I’m going to share a little timeline of all the various jobs we’ve had over the years. Strap in because it’s a bit of a wild ride!

Pre-Expat Years (~2005-2015)

I suppose I have to start with the fact that we had no early plans to live and work abroad. During high school, I babysat, worked at Bruster’s Ice Cream, and moonlighted at a local dog kennel, and Tucker worked as a bag boy at Publix supermarket and delivered Chinese food on the side. Once we got into college, we started leaning towards pharmacy. At 18, we both got jobs as pharmacy technicians. Me, at Northside Pharmacy and later Rite-Aid Pharmacy, and Tucker, at CVS Pharmacy. Then I got into pharmacy school and subsequently had a bit of an existential crisis, so I did what any 20-year-old freaking out would do: I quit my job and dropped out of school.

That’s probably when I started realizing that A) I didn’t want to be tied down to any one place in particular, and B) I really enjoyed doing lots of different things. While I was shifting schools/majors, I worked as an online search guide (back when we didn’t have the internet on our phones), a telemarketer, a door-to-door salesperson, and a bank teller. But then, I started studying linguistics and absolutely fell in love, and coincidently, fell into the world of ESL (English as a Second Language). After finishing my degree, I started teaching at English for Internationals, and then I was fully hooked. I completed my master’s degree (also in applied linguistics) and worked for Georgia State University as a tutor, a research assistant, and a teaching assistant all while still teaching both in class and online for a few different institutions.

During all this, Tucker mostly worked at CVS Pharmacy, but when he graduated with his degree in biology, he got a job working for Castle Laboratories. At Castle, Tucker worked in the lab focusing on toxicology and drug testing, and he loved it, probably at least in part due to Castle’s super fun startup atmosphere. But I was starting to feel a bit stuck again. I was actually a little jealous of my students. I wanted to be completely immersed in a new language and culture like they were! The honeymoon trip we took to Finland and the one teach-abroad program I did in grad school had clearly not been enough for me. Cue Fulbright.

Poland (2015-2016)

Fulbright is an exchange program for students, teachers, scholars, and professionals, and it ended up being the perfect first step into living and working abroad. We had no idea what we were doing, but Fulbright helped us with everything from applying for our first visas to connecting us with mentors and other expats who gave us amazing advice right from the start. For a year, we lived in Łódź, Poland, and I taught several courses at the University of Łódź. Tucker did his best to work remotely for Castle, but after about 6 months, they ran into security issues, and he officially went on sabbatical.

Regardless of any challenges we faced in trying to stay semi-employed in the US while simultaneously spending a year abroad, it was pretty clear early on how much we both thrived living in a foreign country. We hadn’t ever been to Poland or had even heard of the city we now called home, but figuring everything out was a huge part of what we loved. It wasn’t long before I was making plans to stay in Poland even after my Fulbright contract was up. Unfortunately, we couldn’t really do that. At the time, we had no idea how to go about getting a visa or a work permit without Fulbright, and we also had about $40k in student loans to pay back in USD, which felt more like a ball and chain than I ever could have imagined.

Debt-Paying Year (2016-2017)

So, when my Fulbright contract ended, I was resigned to the fact that we’d have to go back to the States, but I now only had one goal in mind: pay off our debt and get back out there! And that’s exactly what we did. Tucker went back to work at Castle full-time, and I got a job teaching at Kennesaw State University. We also lived with family during this interim, ensuring that every cent we made went directly towards our student loan payments. In less than a year, we had zero debt, and we were just about ready to leave again, this time with no plans to come back. But how were we going to get our next visa? How about another exchange program?!

China (2017-2019)

And that’s how I became an English Language Fellow, or a TESOL specialist sent abroad to work on various academic projects that build community and mutual understanding between countries. With Fulbright, I had to choose a country to apply to, but this time, we were assigned to 1 of 70 participating countries. Our assignment: China, and I couldn’t wait! I actually still refer to Poland as our “first pancake” because while we did our best, we were really fumbling through every part of living and working abroad at that point. On our second trip out, I wanted to do better. This time we prepared like never before. We sold everything that didn’t come with us. Tucker had a program of his own to work on this time, and although we didn’t know how long we’d stay in China or what we’d do after ELF, I knew we’d being staying abroad.

We lived and worked in Hefei, China for two years. I taught several courses at Anhui University while also regularly traveling all around the country giving teacher-training workshops as part of the exchange program. Tucker completed an ASCP program and received his technologist of clinical chemistry certificate, and he also traveled with me, quickly becoming everyone’s go-to IT guy! Of course, whenever he got a little tired of university life, he would also spend time at a friend’s brewery helping with quality control and keeping his lab skills sharp. After our contract was finished, we also started working for a recording company in Hefei, reading for various English exams, which we are still doing almost a decade later! But eventually, we decided it was time to move on, and initially, we settled on Canada as our next stop because it had a lot of pros: it was drivable from the US, meaning we could take our pup; it was on the same continent as the rest of our family, and it was bilingual, which would be hugely beneficial for both our careers.

Pandemic Year (2020)

So, in the fall of 2019, we headed back to North America to spend some time with family before heading up to Canada. During this time, we checked out a few cities in Canada, interviewed for a few jobs, and submitted the last of our immigration paperwork, but after a few months, we still had some time left before we were meant to officially move in, so we also went down to Mexico to check out our Plan B. Turns out that was a really good move, because in couple of months the whole world had come to a halt, and we were beyond stuck.

By March 2020, I had a job training Canadian civil servants for their mandatory English exams, Tucker had a job working for a laboratory based in Florida, and we didn’t have a home in either of those countries. We had been bouncing around, waiting on our paperwork to process, but that was looking less and less likely due to the global shut down. After almost a year of sheltering in place (first with family and later in our pay-by-month bunker in downtown Orlando), we decided to enact Plan B and apply for temporary residencies in Mexico. Since both our jobs were online now anyway, por qué no? 6 weeks after applying, we found ourselves all packed up and driving down to Mexico.

Mexico (2021-2023)

Of course, the pandemic year was extremely tough on everyone, but I took it particularly badly since I had promised myself I wasn’t going to get stuck anywhere ever again. Hindsight, amiright? Well, thankfully, moving to Mexico was one of the best decisions we ever made. We were so happy to be immersed again, learning new things every day, and fully leaning into the digital nomads we had somehow become. In Mexico, I worked online for the Canadian training school and for Lingoda, another online school based in Berlin. Tucker, having been kicked out of the physical lab due to COVID, shifted to more of an IT role and was now processing data remotely for the lab back in Orlando. And so went a very tranquilo 2.5 years, until our paperwork for Canada finally went through.

Canada (2023-Present)

We first applied for our Canadian residency way back in October 2019, and at the time, it was projected to take 6 months. Well, with that pesky pandemic, it ended up taking 3 years. But the timing actually wasn’t too bad because while I had recently started working for Duolingo and was feeling even more confident working remotely, Tucker’s job at the lab in Orlando was on its last legs. So, we packed up the car again and drove all the way up to Ottawa. After just a few months, Tucker was able to land a job working firmly in the realm of IT. He’s now an implementation specialist for a company that provides software for laboratories. Due to immigration guidelines, we were restricted to certain provinces for the first few months, but we ended up staying in Ottawa for just about 2 years. However, Québec was the compromise we were truly after, and so in early 2025, we made Québec City our new home.

These days, Tucker is still working remotely for that same company based out of Ottawa, but as AI eventually pushed me out of Duolingo, I spent about a year working online as a tutor, an exam assessor, and a conference moderator before honing my French skills enough to get a job teaching at a local college here. Of course, I’m still too new to have a full course load, which is how I also came to get my tour guide license, adding yet one more job to my already ridiculously complex tax filings, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Future

So, what’s next? Will we eventually settle down? Will we run out of opportunities that continue to take us abroad? I hope not! I’m not sure I’m quite ready to officially settle down. As much as I love Québec, and I absolutely do! In fact, we’ll be applying for citizenship in the next couple of months because I never want paperwork to separate me from this particular home. But, at the same time, I am starting to feel the itch again. I think we have at least one more tour abroad left in us before we settle in again, perhaps for even longer next time. I’m personally still leaning towards Türkiye as our next locale, so if you know anyone there looking for a teacher or an IT specialist in the next couple of years, let me know! Until then, we’ll just keep collecting jobs, countries, and experiences because, somehow, they’ve all led us exactly where we needed to be.

Ten Years an Expat

On September 6, 2025August 27, 2025 By Dani Francuz RoseLeave a comment

Somehow this month marks ten years since Tucker and I first sold most of our belongings and moved abroad. We really had no idea what we were getting into or how we were going to maintain the kind of life we knew we wanted, and even now, I’m not sure I could tell you how exactly we’ve managed to continue moving abroad again and again. I think it’s mostly been an experiment in just how flexible we can be, which is fitting because that’s one of the first skills you develop when you move abroad!

Over the past ten years, we went from the US to Poland and back to the US (to pay off all our student loans), and then we headed to China for a few years and then back to the US (this time for global lockdown), and then onto Mexico, and now Canada. It’s been a crazy decade to say the least, but the places we’ve lived and the people we’ve met have continued to shape us year after year in innumerable ways. And for this month’s somewhat reflective post, I want to share some of the many ways we’ve changed and grown as a result of our expat ways.

We’ve become flexible to the extreme

As I alluded to earlier, when I think of the many skills we’ve developed as a result of moving abroad, flexibility has to be at the top of the list. Whether it’s little things like using Celsius with some people and Fahrenheit with others or big things like not knowing where we’ll be living next year, we’ve gotten incredibly good at going with the flow. When I look back at my early observations from our first year abroad, it always makes me laugh at how hard it was for me to relinquish control. Now I feel like I struggle when I have too much control! It seems I’ve really grown to love letting the universe decide for me.

We’re totally fine with ambiguity

Another early observation I often made had to do with not always understanding what was going on around me. In unfamiliar places with new languages and customs, the level of ambiguity you experience on a daily basis skyrockets. Are we supposed to do something here? Should we ask about that? What does this mean? Questions like these and general uncertainty used to plague us. Until they didn’t. Until we learned that there’s really no wrong way, only different ways. Eventually, we also learned the difference between being expats as opposed to pioneers. Expats get to rely on the experiences of those who came before them, and we definitely do. But if/when that fails, we’ve also learned to simply accept not knowing.

We’re stoic bureaucracy-handlers

One of the most taxing parts of maintaining legal status as an expat has to be all the paperwork: visas, residencies, IDs, taxes, health cards, driver’s licenses, bank accounts, etc. The list is never-ending. After so many years and so many forms and appointments, I can very confidently say that bureaucracy is messy and incredibly frustrating everywhere. We now just assume every process will take a few attempts and several months (if not years) of our lives, which has really helped set expectations and allowed us to remain stoic and unfeeling while jumping through hoop after hoop after hoop. Government office waiting rooms are great places for mindful meditation, you know.

We’re accidental minimalists

In addition to becoming masters at handling immigration processes, we’ve also become expert movers. We know exactly what we need and want in our homes, and over the years, we’ve shed all the fluff. And whenever we happen to collect additional fluff, we’re systematic and unsentimental in removing it before the next move. People are often surprised that we’ve moved countries so many times with nothing but suitcases. Quite a few suitcases, but still. It’s actually pretty easy to do when I remember all the things we took on our first move that we never used. Or when I remember all the things we’ve used in a particular place that wouldn’t make sense anywhere else. These days we tend to take a lot more art with us and a lot fewer dead appliances.

We’re expert home-makers

Speaking of homes though, we’ve had a lot of them over the years. From country to country or even apartment to apartment, every place we’ve lived has always felt like home. Early on in our expat experience, someone advised me to prioritize setting up our home because we’d be surprised at how quickly “later” becomes “never”. Well, we took that to heart and always make sure our apartment is set up before tackling other tasks. We also work really hard to make sure we feel at home in the community as well, which means joining groups, meeting neighbors, learning names and faces. It can be difficult being the new people in town, but we’ve found the quicker we reach out, the quicker we feel at home.

We’re nothing if not adaptable

Another skill that makes itself known every time someone visits one of our far-flung homes is our adaptability. No dishwasher? No problem. Drinking hot water in summer? Sure, why not? Have to do everything over the phone? Got it. Everywhere we’ve called home has changed us in so many ways. Sometimes we forget what was normal for us before moving abroad because we’ve so strongly adapted to several different lifestyles now. This is how I know it doesn’t really matter where we live or what we do because the skill of adaptability is such a broad and encompassing one, that I know we’ll be just fine anywhere.

We’re always adopting new habits

Likely due to all the adapting we’ve had to do over the years, we’ve also gained quite an assortment of international habits. For example, at some point, we became a strict no-shoes-inside household, and when I think back to all the shoes that walked across our carpeted US apartment floors, I shudder. I also can’t believe we lived 25 years without an electric kettle! You’ll have to pry that out of our cold, dead hands now. Similarly, after living in both tea and coffee cultures, we now find ourselves enjoying both regularly. We also find ourselves checking sunset/sunrise times, the weather, and the air quality index more than most, which are all habits we picked up in different places at different times. It’s interesting to note which things stay behind in the places we leave versus which ones we take with us as the ghosts of homes’ past.

We’re an interesting mix of cultures to say the least

Similar to our eclectic mix of habits picked up from around the world, I would say that we ourselves have ended up a strange mix of all our homes. It’s rare that someone immediately places us as American. Even when hearing us speak, our accents don’t give much away, especially when speaking something other than English (you’re likely to hear a very strange combination of linguistic features depending on the day). We also have very strong inclinations toward European showerheads, the use of chopsticks, and what should and should not go on a taco. We self-identify as Polish-American-Canadian-Tapatío laowais, and we’ll happily talk your ear off about life in Poland, the US, Canada, Mexico, and/or China because each of those places is a part of us and always will be.

We’re excited to make every day an adventure

All these fun little quirks keep us tied to the places we used to call home, but one of the best parts of being a perpetual expat (no matter where we are) is the fact that every day becomes an adventure. The smallest tasks are new and exciting, and we never know what we’re going to learn. This is really why we keep doing it; why we haven’t “settled down” yet. We’ve learned to love the daily micro-adventures and mini-challenges that keep us on our toes and forever entertained. Every time we start over in a new place, we get to experience so many firsts again. We get to find a new set of favorites and develop new habits that only enhance our lives. An adventure a day certainly keeps the boredom away!

We’re constantly learning and reflecting

And last, but not least, all this moving and growing and changing allows us to continually learn and reflect. Before each move, we get to look back at our time in a given place and reflect on everything we did, all the changes we experienced, and what we could or should have done differently if given the chance. And then…we get another chance! I sometimes refer to Poland as our “first pancake” because with hindsight, it’s easy to see how we’ve continually gotten better at being expats. All these skills (and more) have been honed over the years, and we’ve learned how to make the most of our time in the places we call home. Of course, we also realize just how lucky we are, so to all our homes: thank you, dziękuję, xièxie, gracias, and merci for the best decade of our lives!

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