So I told work I am refusing to go to Bangladesh. They still want me to go and don’t believe it’s dangerous. I’d told them that if I go it’ll be because they are forcing me and I would be very unhappy and, honestly, scared.
Here’s a page from the British Foreign Office.
Let’s see how this goes.
Good luck with that. I know I certainly wouldn’t be going either.
You were planning on going?
I was going to hide in your suitcase.
I have to sympathise Cliph. It is not a very stable region at the moment. What sort of security did they say you would have?
Hotel car to/from Airport and the office.
Not exactly a personal bodyguard. Is anyone else in a position to go instead of you?
That’s the thing, there’s no one else that can go, no one on-site can do the work, so either I go or the contract falls through.
Were you told that you may have to go to potentially unstable countrys in your interview? How about danger money?
Travel is part of my job. There’s been no mention of “danger money” and that is understandable as there are no official “don’t travel to Bangladesh” travel warnings. The company understand and appreciate my concerns but don’t consider Bangladesh, even in light of recent news, a dangerous place. They have said we’ll look at further information about the currecnt state of affairs in the country and if it appears as bad as I say they won’t send me. I feel, howerver, that this is an exercise in placation and that the information we’ll be looking at is stuff that will paint Bangladesh, Dhaka and current affairs in a less than dangerous light.
They will probably contact the Bangladesh Tourism Bureau :p. Did you get your injections for Hepatitus and Yellow Fever?
How long will you be over there?
Sure 20 years ago you could have had the same concerns about the north.
General rule if a bomb goes off don’t run away from the site because there usually is another one set up to get the people who are running away.
Would you travel to London?
I would go, as my friends recently have. It would still sound to be an amazing experience.
Speaking as someone who did his best to talk a friend out of going contracting in Iraq, you are being a weenie.
I would go, in a second, if work was paying for it.
Wow, pirates!
Ed, yeah I’ve had a load of injections for everything I was advised to get.
Jo, London and Dhaka are not at all comparable.
Gwen, who went where?
Kev, because it’s not as bad as Baghdad, I shouldn’t mind going?
Aidan, Why would you go? Also, Yarr!
Cliph: Because it’s like going to another world compared to Dublin, Toronto or Switzerland. You’ll get some insight into the origins of the folks from the subcontinent you meet in Dublin, insight no-one would think to tell you because it’s so minor, but that will be fascinating all the same.
(An example of the reverse process; before he moved to Chicago, someone I know from Bombay thought that the reason make-up colours were useless was because of a quirk of the manufacturing process, because no-one’s skin could naturally be that pasty, could it?)
As to the terrorism side of things, I tend to have some faith in the sort of statistics that rate it less likely than being hit by a bus. (Yeah, I know many people don’t.)
(That said, you knew about those motivations already, and if you are honestly scared, my restating them is unlikely to change your mind.)
Having them explained in descriptive language is always good though.