Work, work, work!

I haven't written one of these for way too long, so I shall try and keep it short.

Four years ago, I changed jobs when the fabulous, small, friendly Australian company, that I had been lucky enough to stumble onto just when my work ran out, was taken over by a big US company that promptly shut it down 9 months later and sacked all the staff.

One of my ex-colleagues had left some time previously, and we happened to meet up for lunch about that time, during which she extolled the virtues of some guy she'd met and it took me 20 minutes to get a word in. "So who is this guy anyway" I ask. She looked sheepish and admitted that he had been the trainer on a training course her company had put her on and one thing had led to another! She described his job of going around running training courses and consulting to various companies and I asked her to send him my CV. Two months later I started my new job - it really is who you know (especially in Australia - all the jobs I have ever got here have been by word of mouth).

My new company developed a library of code that is widely used by application developers who use the "Java" programming language. The library itself is Open Source (meaning you can download and use it for free). So they make their money from providing related services - training and consulting. It was a small, 150 person company but was based in the US and, like all US companies I have ever worked for, the US directors insisted on trying to micro-manage everything from the US (badly) which is inherently frustrating. We had the same problem when I worked at Object Design all those years ago -- you learn to live with it and grumble a lot!

In a flash of deja vu, we were bought two years ago by another large US company (9000 employees then and growing). Total culture shock moving from a laid-back, open-source, services company to probably the most aggressively sales-driven product company I have ever come across. Sadly this culture shock was not even remotely registered by their management who couldn't understand why we didn't rush joyfully into their open (grasping?) arms. Transition has been painful and is compounded by a bizarre reporting structure that operates globally. So although I work in Australia, until recently my boss was in first Atlanta and then San Francisco. More recently they have got themselves sorted and I am reporting to someone in Melbourne.

The best aspect was getting a significant number of shares to join up and we are now in the happy position of having paid off a chunk of our mortgage, at least until the Aussie tax-office takes half my share proceeds back in tax. But it's a nice feeling whilst it lasts!

My role as trainer takes me all over this region - mostly Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong with occasional forays to Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Shanghai. Still haven't managed to wangle a class in Bangkok! Sounds glam, but staying in hotels gets very old very quickly, as does eating alone in strange restaurants, no matter how good the food!

Fortunately Wiwat is infinitely patient with my frequent absences from home - I travel 2-3 weeks most months. Also, I have friends in many of the places I visit so I try to catch up with them whilst I am there. I do wonder if some of them are getting fed up with seeing me but am too afraid to ask!