Friday, June 08, 2007

Where Next? Or Not.

SO is between jobs at the moment. Has been for a year and a bit now, actually. Everything is fine, he has picked up enough consultancy work to keep the wolf at a very respectable distance from the door, thank you very much, but he does hanker for something rather more reliable. (And when he hankers, I hanker. 'Where thou hankerest, I will hanker' Book of Ruth? Dunno. Sumpn like that.) And it's not just that, it's what this is now doing to his CV, and how rusty his skill set is getting, and the contacts he just can't maintain in quite the same way, usw.


The trouble is, jobs in his area (he is in the oil business) can be found all over the place, and he is quite keen on the idea of a job abroad, while I, since a comparatively peripatetic childhood, have been very content to find a home and stay there.

So, after much internal debate and wrestling, I finally came round to the idea that living in foreign parts is not in and of itself A Bad Thing. In fact, who knows, we may quite like it. I've insisted that it has to be somewhere I want to go. I draw the line at Libya, for instance. Saudi Arabia. Algeria, nuh-huh. But Jakarta? Possibly. Singapore? For all its peculiarities, yeah, why not? SO has mentioned Vienna and Madrid too. (I'd adore Hong Kong, but SO says that is one place there are actually no oily jobs. Boo hoo.)

This was last night, and by now my feet are getting noticeably itchy.

But then, it's never going to happen anyway.

6 comments:

Zig said...

ooooo I recommend Brunei but he'd have to work for Shell - it's very nice there.

I, Like The View said...

oooh indeed - first aeroplane tickets to a foriegn part, now a couple of container lorries and some shipping crates!

bagzee those nice sweet pea poles, please. . .

(how do you spell bagzee?)

(the only places I could recommend are Norway or New York or Calgary)(there is oil in Norway and also Calgary, if that helps!)

word ver: do-do-do-the-funky-gibbon

but that might well be meaningless, unless you have seen reruns of The Goodies?

Dave said...

Oooh. Every other blogger this week seems to be giving up theuir job/moving. What is going on?

Valerie said...

Well, I didn't do it on purpose, Dave!

And I'm trying not to move. Though the SO might really prefer to return to the land of Oz.

I do sometimes wish I weren't such a stay-in-one-place by nature. I say take advantage of the itch when it hits!

FirstNations said...

oil in alaska.....
which i'd advise you to AVOID LIKE THE VERY FRICKEN PLAGUE unless you fancy experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder in it's epidemic stages.

come to think of it america is got oily parts all over, like a teenager. i haven't noticed it's any slipperier here than anywhere else, but i've never been anywhere else so I may have adapted. *glides off*

Mangonel said...

I'm not actually fussed where we go. Anywhere with staff, and I'll be happy.

I,LTV, of course. My beans appear not to have any use for them.