Bodhi Bum

Truth be told I have gotten into the habit now of returning from work to a hotel room with not much more to do than either do more work, or watch German (or Dutch, or Finish, or whatever language happens to be the flavour for that week) TV. German TV is not a pleasent viewing experience. Wonderful people, but the language is a bitch to listen to. So instead I figured I might as well write out a little something and save myself on the email responses which generally tend to eat up a good portion of a work day in which I'm already precariously short of precious time anyways. So two birds with one stone, so to speak. 

So where am I on this date in the great wide world? Well, I'm somewhere called Neu-Isenburgh (although it's not pronounced anywhere close to what it looks like). This hotel is a cute little boutique hotel which I've been told was bombed to smithereens by American war planes back in WWII, along with the surrounding village. But it's back in one piece, and with an American military base not two miles away as well. It's a really nice area surrounded by dense forest, totally bringing back pictures of Hans Christian Anderson children stories. The office is in an industrial park outside town, and the group of guys there are really good. They took me and the new guy out for dinner last night and I had a authentic Schnitzel, and more than few authentic German beer.

Just to give some perseptive here to the new joiner to the crazy adventure that is my life. The past, well years, have been quite the ride. To make it brief for sake of my quickly developing carnal tunnel syndrome, this is what happened. Finished Uni. Spent 1.8 years years (give or take) drinking beer and being a townie. Ran out of money and took a job at the local BiWay. Had a truly frightening flash of insight that I was a 23 year old University graduate working as a stoolie unloading boxes of discount tampons, and my work partner was retarded. True story. Three weeks later was on my way to Toronto to get education. Flash forward six months and I'm working on the New York Stock Exchange and working on Wall Street.

Doing a twelve hour day wiping traders asses to be fair, but still a step up from BiWay and the retard. Flash forward to September 11th and me standing stupidly watching the festivities while the second plane decides to wake me out of my stupor and send flying debris somewhere in my immediate vicinity. Fast forward five minutes and I'm still running as I clear ChinaTown and hit the East River. New York slowly fades away and soon I'm Australia bound to Sydney to take residence on Manly Beach, learn how to surf, get my scuba diving certifications and work the investment banking world of the Asia Pacific.

Had an amazing year and change, made many great friends and one great girl. But it wasn't to last as the wanderlust kicked back in and drew me to South East Asia. Two trips provided the appetite (for destruction as it turns out), and last November I was free and gone. Backpack securely strapped on and the future wide open. The next few months saw me conquer Thailand, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Christmas with the family, then back to Thailand, and then things went somehow askew. Plans got bent, hearts got broken, and I crawled out of Cambodia eight months later slightly disoriented and more than a little worse for wear. What I can remember involves a few months of surprisingly lucid study and time well spent within a buddhist monastery in northern cambodia and the surrounding villages, a few blank spots within Phnom Penh and a whole lot of great memories I wouldn't trade for the world.

Somewhere out of all that I managed to escape back to the real world and crawl onto a plane bound for London. Skip over four weeks of desperate job search while I semi-starved and harassed mom and dad with regular phone calls begging for food and love. And finally someone took pity on me and actually offered me a job. And a job travelling no less. Living in hotels. Seeing a new country and new city every week. All expenses paid. Being paid to travel! I never actually thought that existed. And yet here I am. Getting paid to travel around the world. Funny thing this life. You never know how it's gonna turn out. I just gotta laugh sometimes because it's all so ludicrous.

So back to the present and the situation at hand. Work. Well, I am an auditor. To be more precise. My job title is an International Auditor. How cool of a job title is that? Ok. Ignore the auditor part and get mental pictures of geeky accountants out of your mind. I'm an IT Auditor, and it's actually a really cool job. Especially the international part. I'm the guy that comes into your office and your boss tells you that you have to cater to my every whim for the week. Or I will write a report that says you are a lousy employee that doesn't know your job and will likely defraud the company for millions of dollars. So in other words, your ass is mine. And if you don't recomend a five star hotel for me to stay in and take me out to dinner to an authentic German/Finnish/French/insert the country of the week/ then I will make your life a living hell. Actually, just joking, but that's not far off the way that many people see us.

So personally, I've received honourable mention as of Tuesday that my work is what everyone else should be aspiring to for audit quality. So today the boss made the naughty and nice list, sending all the useless auditors back to corporate for some training while three of us get to spend two weeks on one site helping the local team get ready. So i learned today that after next week (which will be in Germany as well) I get to return to Finland and spend two weeks there. But I think it can be done in a week, so will move over to Milan for a week if that's the case. So I've done my bit I was trying to do and proved myself to the company, and came out on top. Nice to know I'm good at something.

I've put some thought into this, because this is honestly the job I was born to do. I get to travel, all expenses paid, live in hotel rooms, and I actually LOVE the work. And I think why I love it is that I'm really good at it. The job essentially is part writer, part detective. That's the best way you can put it. What I do is show up a site for the first time, and spend half my time speaking with the staff, pouring through documents, searching the web, digging through servers, picking apart the local systems and trying to pull out the answers that I need, and the other half of the time I spend writing up the findings. And writing style does make a big difference obviously, because my work has been singled out as what it should be. And literally I sit down at 8 in the morning and I have to drag myself away by 7pm, and the day has just vanished in no time. I still remember so many days looking at the clock every ten mintues and watching the day crawl by. What a difference when you love your job. And the fact that I'm making more money than I ever dreamed of helps a little as well.

To be good at something, love what you do, and make a lot of money doing it. I can't think of much better than that.

So this job goes through until the end of November and my consulting group has already said they have a ton of contracts they want me to look over and choose from. Interestingly enough, I got approached by one of our clients who I've been working with who said that he's going on an audit job in Asia, and needs another auditor to handle the Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney offices. So I've got the details coming on that job and will consider it. The great thing about my company is that I can take time off to do another job, and come back to them no issues.

So now that I've rambled on about nothing and already lost your attention I'll wrap up. I'll keep this journal up to date mostly as a whereabouts kind of thing, recording my travels and my thoughts. I've found that keeping a real diary isn't the easiest thing to do, but since I've got a free wireless internet connection in my hotel room every night I might as well make use of it beyone surfing porn (just joking mom).

Well, it's time to order the usual room service. Is it a bad thing when room service and having your clothes cleaned for you becomes everyday life, rather than a treat. Come to think of it, it's like having mom here living with me in Germany. But not as good mom, promise.

Ok, until next time.

Bodhi