Blog

The Best Job in the World

09.17.07
John Goldwyn, Associate Vice President, Landscape Architect, Senior Project Planner

Ideas, Discoveries, Travel, Collaboration, Learning

I always tell people that I have the best job in the world. I mean it. I get to go to the most interesting places on earth. As the focus of much of our work is destination design, it makes sense that these places are usually created in stunning locations. I enjoy the adventure of getting there, even though I am an extremely nervous flyer. So the flight is always somewhat harrowing, but the euphoria of landing can't be beaten.

The fabulous thing about working so closely with clients is that they are always so enthusiastic about their homeland. They always want to take us to visit the most interesting places, secret places that no one except for the locals know about: restaurants, temples, parks, caves, views, and bars.

It is always enlightening to engage with local customs and traditions; from toasting business success with smooth Ukrainian vodka to sampling the (delicious) national dish of "horse Lasagne" in Kazakhstan or enjoying a bowl of steaming fish lips in southern China amongst a table full of dim sum. The Chinese are particularly proud to take the whole team out for dinner, sometimes dozens of attendees. It seems that the UK is almost the only country in the world without a fantastic culture of eating and drinking spanning centuries.

I always see a different side of my colleagues when I travel with them. Some get stressed about losing bags (it always happens to someone) and lengthy delays. The best ones just let it wash over them and smile. I remember once losing my bag for a week in the Bahamas and attending client/consultant meetings in (borrowed) flowery shorts. Recently, I was (just) spared speaking at a (rather serious) conference wearing a pink polo shirt.

I have even been lucky enough to swim on a number of our coastal sites-always at the insistence of the client. How can we get the sense of the spirit of place if we don't feel it?

All this sounds like I don't have a very 'serious' job. In fact, quite the reverse is true. We are in the business of helping clients make extremely important decisions about large amounts of valuable and scarce resources such as land, open space, water and fragile ecologies. The expertise of the team works together to make sure that we come up with our best possible collaboration and product.

In fact, this all sounds really very serious, and it is. We just have a lot of fun along the way.