As I anticipated, I’m now out of a job. To simplify a complicated situation, the company I was working for in the Solomon Islands has been experiencing financial difficulty for the past two years. More ominously, for the past two months, expatriate employees going back to Malaysia for their annual leave have not been receiving their full salary payment before being asked to return to work in the Solomon Islands.

As the person holding the title of Financial Controller in the company, though without much the power that the title holds since I’m not a relative of the big boss, unlike many of the other managers there, I have been keenly disturbed by this and worried that the powers-that-be have not been willing to take the harsh measures necessary to return the company to a profitable status. Even before I left the Solomon Islands, I insisted that I would refuse to work unless I was paid in full. After some nasty telephone calls, I have now been fully paid and also instructed that I won’t need to return to work.

Don’t feel too bad for me though, since my wife and I have been planning to leave the company after just one more year of working there anyway. This just means that we’ll need to readjust to life in Malaysia one year earlier with a bit less money than we’d planned. I’m planning to take things easy for a while. Now that I think about it,I’ve been working outside Malaysia for nearly 10 years now, and even that was after just a year of working in Malaysia after spending nearly 3 years in France. After all this time spent overseas, readjusting to life will take some doing. Not only will I need to look for a job, I’ll actually need to buy a car, learn how to drive in the hectic streets of Kuala Lumpur (very different from the leisurely pace in Honiara) and yes, even set up some sort of broadband connection where I’m staying. Just about everything here is new to me!

Once my net access is up and running, I should be able to work on updating this blog on a more regular basis, beginning with some fun stuff that I’ve been up to during the past month.