Thinks that's me too - everything I had, I worked for and paid for. My first long term girl friend used to complain, that when work told me to jump, I asked how high . . . correct, 'cos the higher I jumped, the more I learnt, the more I got paid, the more I got asked to jump . . . taken me all around the world, worked in many places I would never have got to on my own, never would have thought to go to.
I remember the first time we were asked to go off and work on-site in later 1998 - it was in the USA - I'd been there a year or so, a fellow design engineer a lot longer, since a teenager, so I didn't think I'd be first choice, but expressed my interest - the bag was ready . . . My colleague was asked . . . but he had gym membership, Sky TV paid for, his car . . . he lived at home with his mum and dad still at that point. A week into 1999, my car was parked, battery disconnected, and I was in NY for three months . . . and for the next decade I wasn't in the UK for very long at a time.
I'm off on Friday for a week in foreign lands to investigate some issues others have been unable to work out in a customer plant. I won't get paid overtime, I won't get paid for travelling, I'll no doubt be in the place for long days, be knackered, wreck a good few clothes - and hopefully come away satisfied with a job well done, having learnt some more, leaving a happier customer.
Some might say being asked to be a taxi driver was degrading - after all, I'm an important design engineer, with whom and my designs, they wouldn't make anything to sell to the customer and meet their specs - but on a sunny day, being paid to smooze with big boss of a customer, or our big American boss (when we were bought up) - so now I have a contact for work, for info, even assistance if we can't get to a job. 
