The year that was 2010 did not begin well for me. It started with closing out a reasonably good 2009 with a trip to France to celebrate Christmas with my parents, which was normal for me anyway. The nice thing about this trip was that my younger brother and his wife were spending the holidays with us together. This was the first Christmas we had all been together since 2003, something that had been grating on me for a while now. The New Year was rung in as usual, and my flight back to Dublin was on the 2nd of January from Barcelona. Since it was an early morning flight, I decided to drive down the day before and stay the night in a hotel.
That leg of the journey was fine, despite the best efforts of my GPS in locating the hotel! It was a pleasant enough evening, although for me, the bed was incredibly uncomfortable and left me with significant back pain. Anyway, I drove to the airport the next morning, and returned my hire car, full of diesel and so on. I checked in as normal, took my time walking up to the gate and poured around some of the shops as I walked. When I got to the gate, I checked the departure screens which showed an hour’s delay for my flight. I thought this was kind of understandable as Ireland was experiencing some extreme weather in the shape of snow and ice. How wrong I was.
It turns out that our flight had never even left Dublin due to a decision on the part of the airline. This was despite the fact that many other airlines were safely using Dublin airport for take-offs and landings. So, with a cancelled flight and no availability until the following Tuesday, I needed to either find a place to stay, or get back to my parents in France. I checked my account balances but since some monthly payments had already gone through, I was running quite low, meaning I needed to get back to France. Thanks to the time of year and the wonders of the transport system, it took 2 trains, a bus, a blazing row with the bus driver and 19 hours of stressful travelling before I was back in the comfort of the place in France.
February wasn’t much better. In fact, it was a whole lot worse. My car got damaged, courtesy of one of Ireland’s wonderful citizens and as a result, I lost my no-claims bonus on my insurance after having to fork out for the repairs. Two weeks later, it got even worse. I got called into the boardroom to face my manager, my MD, the Financial Controller and another person. “Andrew, I’m sorry but we’re letting you go. Here’s a severance package and a reference. Please clear your desk now.” To say I was devastated would be an understatement. I rather shakingly cleared my personal effects into a box and bag, said goodbye to a few cherished colleagues and walked to my car. I climbed behind the wheel and closed my eyes, trying to compose myself, but the tears came and rolled down my cheek. Ironically, I wasn’t worried about myself. I was worried about how I was going to keep paying for my much loved car! Strange the things we think about when the worst happens.
Oddly, by the time I made it home some twenty minutes later, I was actually feeling relieved. I felt much lighter, my head was clear and the pangs of sadness and tears were long gone. I sent a few texts, but I didn’t tell my parents. I chatted with my flatmate that evening and realised that everything was going to be ok. After five years of hard work, long hours, and stress that at times was so severe that I developed chest pains and palpitations, I was free. It felt good. I chatted with a couple of close friends over the internet that night and they were all filled with worry and asked things like, “What are you going to do? How are you going to live?”
And yet, through all of this questioning, I was smiling! I had to go back to the office the following day to run through my files and abandoned work with a former colleague and a number of people remarked on how well I looked, even though it had only been a few hours. On reflection, that in itself proved to me that losing my job was in fact, a good thing.
That day, I also went straight to the local Social Welfare office and showed them all of my details and got myself signed on as unemployed. My CV was revamped and I started scouring the adverts, job websites, recruitment agencies and so on. Initially I was confident of being able to get a job relatively quickly. I mean, to look at my CV, you will find a strong record of work experience across a diverse range of industries and companies. And the job I had just left showed a strong progression from entry level to my most recent position within the company, which attracted significant responsibilities. Yet, I had not received any phone calls requesting an interview. Not even from an over-zealous recruitment agency. Two months later, I was getting worried, very worried.
In August 2010, I started on a ten-week management course with the Irish state training agency, which was then called FAS. During the course, we went through a section designed to revamp the attendee’s CV and get the person themselves ready to go to interview. It was also designed to help the attendees find out if there was some other career or path for them to follow. And the more I participated in the class, the more I realised that Ireland was no longer the source of my future. I had been texting my parents back and forth about various ideas for menus, recipes and general chat and kind of brazenly suggested that I move over to France in 2011 in order to start work on my new dream. I had finally discovered what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to work in the wine business in France to develop contacts for the future. I decided that I wanted to eventually emigrate to the United States and open a wine shop. And possibly uniquely, import my stock directly from the winemakers across France and Europe that I had been working with already.
So there it is, the trigger that lead to me finally figuring out what I want to do with my life after 35 years of trying. The next post will be about another formative experience along the road to where I am. Thanks for reading!
Andrew
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Introductions
For a first post, I thought it best to do something of an introduction. Well, as it says above, my name is Andrew and I wanted to write this blog to document my journey. This was no ordinary trip down the road or on holiday. This was a mental journey to get myself in the right frame of mind to make a life-changing move. But I also want to pay some small attention to the physical trip itself.
Just to give some background on me, I have more than fifteen years of work experience in sales, marketing, administration and management. I hold a diploma in marketing and several certificates in computer technology and software. However, these, to my mind now, were just jobs. Things to give me experience along the road of life. I lost my last job in February 2010 and since then, I have been gearing up to starting my new life and career. Almost a year after that horrible moment when the boss said “We have to let you go”, I finally made that move.
I emigrated to France in February 2011 to work alongside my parents who made the move in 2004. They run a small Bed and Breakfast business with a café/restaurant in a peaceful but historic village in the South of France. Since food and wine is one of my passions, and have been cooking since I was a child, it made sense to combine work and passion and make the move. Although I am not a qualified chef, since moving here I have received many compliments about my cooking and knowledge of wines.
While part of my work is in the kitchen or giving wine tastings to guests, another part of my work is in the development and advancement of marketing the business. This is nothing more than using my skills and experience in marketing and social media to give the business the exposure it deserves. And, no doubt there will be other exciting developments along the way!
But back to the journey. It took a lot for me to make this move, and I should admit that sometimes I still wonder what might have been. Or if there will be something else along my path. But the truth is, I had no choice but to move away from Ireland. Given the current difficulties in that country, there were no jobs available for me. It took almost a year of trying to make the decision and come to the realisation that there was little to no future in Ireland for me.
In writing the blog, I hope that I will be able to document, and perhaps even rationalise my feelings and thoughts on the move. I plan to write about the way the Social Welfare system works in Ireland and my experiences of it. Sometimes, I might also delve into some personal items, such as my past, childhood, and events that helped to shape the man I am today. Some of these were hugely happy for me, but others were devastatingly sad too, including the death of someone I loved at the end of 2010.
I hope you will enjoy reading about my exploits, both recent and distant past. Hopefully you will laugh sometimes, or find my words inspiring or helpful. Maybe you will even cry from the sad times. I look forward to telling the tale of My Journey!
Andrew
Just to give some background on me, I have more than fifteen years of work experience in sales, marketing, administration and management. I hold a diploma in marketing and several certificates in computer technology and software. However, these, to my mind now, were just jobs. Things to give me experience along the road of life. I lost my last job in February 2010 and since then, I have been gearing up to starting my new life and career. Almost a year after that horrible moment when the boss said “We have to let you go”, I finally made that move.
I emigrated to France in February 2011 to work alongside my parents who made the move in 2004. They run a small Bed and Breakfast business with a café/restaurant in a peaceful but historic village in the South of France. Since food and wine is one of my passions, and have been cooking since I was a child, it made sense to combine work and passion and make the move. Although I am not a qualified chef, since moving here I have received many compliments about my cooking and knowledge of wines.
While part of my work is in the kitchen or giving wine tastings to guests, another part of my work is in the development and advancement of marketing the business. This is nothing more than using my skills and experience in marketing and social media to give the business the exposure it deserves. And, no doubt there will be other exciting developments along the way!
But back to the journey. It took a lot for me to make this move, and I should admit that sometimes I still wonder what might have been. Or if there will be something else along my path. But the truth is, I had no choice but to move away from Ireland. Given the current difficulties in that country, there were no jobs available for me. It took almost a year of trying to make the decision and come to the realisation that there was little to no future in Ireland for me.
In writing the blog, I hope that I will be able to document, and perhaps even rationalise my feelings and thoughts on the move. I plan to write about the way the Social Welfare system works in Ireland and my experiences of it. Sometimes, I might also delve into some personal items, such as my past, childhood, and events that helped to shape the man I am today. Some of these were hugely happy for me, but others were devastatingly sad too, including the death of someone I loved at the end of 2010.
I hope you will enjoy reading about my exploits, both recent and distant past. Hopefully you will laugh sometimes, or find my words inspiring or helpful. Maybe you will even cry from the sad times. I look forward to telling the tale of My Journey!
Andrew
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)