Airplane Blogging

I'm currently high above the clouds, travelling home from Yemen (my other home) for the final time. Specifically, I am somewhere above Nunavut although all I can see is a blinding sea of white clouds when I open the window cover.

Note: This was intended to be a posting about leaving Yemen (and I will get to that further down), but it kind of ended up being a career retrospect.

I have been most passive about my career. I have had great success, but it has nothing to do with any sort of career plan on my part. I've just sort of gone with the flow of things. The funny thing is that if an outsider looked at my career map, it would look that I am very career-minded with a specific target in mind. I wish I could take credit for envisioning such a plan, but it was a series of consecutive lucky beaks that lead me here. I am probably being a little too humble. Melissa reminds me ofen that it must have taken some ability and hard work for someone to keep noticing me and offering up these opportunities.

Here's my resume. In my final summer semester in University, I accepted a job for 4 months in Calgary with a Canadian energy company. They were impressed enough (or maybe so short-handed) that they offered me a full-time position when I was finished my degree. I was part of some sort of new grad development plan where they tried to cycle inexperienced university grads through 3 jobs in 3 years. After my first year doing very basic work, I was transferred to the international exploration division, the sexiest division in the company (unsolicited lucky break #1). I hadn't put any sort of a request in, I just happened to be due when the opening came. Before they could rotate me again, the company went through a merger with another company in what was the largest merger in Canadian history. Somehow, the new grad rotation was forgotten about amidst the chaos of bringing the two companies together (unsolicited lucky break #2). This suited me fine as I was learning a great deal from a group of mentors that seriously influenced my abilities as an accountant. Before you know it, I am going on exotic business trips to the Middle East and South America on my own.

In 2004, I received a phone call from a colleague who had just left the company. He had accepted a high ranking finance posting in Yemen and thought enough of my ability to offer me the chance to work in Yemen (unsolicited lucky break #3). I wasn't looking to leave, but I've learned that you must grab opportunities when you find them (or trip over them like I seem to). Off to Yemen I go. Four years later, here I am.

My latest career move is to a very exciting job (a nice career advancement located in my backyard in rural SW Alberta) at the perfect time (won't have to leave my new family every second month). It is not easy to give up the perks of the Yemen job. Half the year off to do anything and everything I've ever wanted to do, favourable income tax on overseas income, exciting work environment, air miles like you wouldn't believe and a generally low-stress job. In fact, there was only one job in Alberta that would have lured me away from Yemen...and it did. In mid March, we came back from Calgary on the same day that we bought our truck and I checked the internet for news when we got home. This is normal for me. I am an internet info junkie and will head straight to the computer to get the latest as soon as I walk in the door. One of the websites that pings on my Google Reader is Eluta. My feed reader is set to show me any jobs posted on the web that are within 100Kms of Sparwood, BC, our neighbours just accross the border. I've linked to this mainly out of curiosity than anything and never dreamed a senior accounting posting would ever come up. That changed when the title "Project Finance Manager" pops up. A click later and I find out that this job was as close a match as you can get for my area of experience and expertise. That alone would not have swayed me, but the fact that it was within daily driving distance of our mountain home did.

We have come to really value our rural small town lifestyle and have been thinking of options to avoid being dragged back to the city. This job was just that. A position of the same calibre as any in the city with the chance to live in a small town. Long story short; I applied, drove to Calgary for a 2 hour interview, had a second phone interview a week later and a satisfactory offer was presented to me the next day. They got their man and I got the only job in Alberta I wanted (I just didn't know it).

I am having very mixed emotions about leaving Yemen. These emotions are amplified due to everything happening so quickly. I always expected that I would have six months notice with plenty of time to say my goodbyes and to transition back to a working life in Canada. I wasn't looking to leave my job in Yemen. In fact, I was content with being there another 1-2 years until my function was replaced entirely by capable Yemenis.

The past four years has changed me personally and professionally in a very profound way. I am a very different person and a much stronger accountant than I was four years ago when I showed up in Yemen with my backpack. The job provided me with a lot of this, but the situation allowed me to make other life enhancements (moving out of the city, seeing the world through extensive travelling). For many different reasons, my values, goals and perspective on life have changed in a very pleasing way. I feel more than ever that know what I want in life and have the confidence to make it happen. All of this because of an unsolicited phone call.

The last four years by the numbers:
20 - number of rotations completed ranging from 3 to 6 weeks
16 - Countries I have spent significant time in
720 - Estimated hours spent on airplanes (just airplanes, not including airports, hotels or buses)
1.8 - Years of my life spent living in the Yemen desert
45 - Nights spent in Dubai hotels

Update: Nunavut is long gone, over the Yukon now about to cross into Alberta.