In early January, my boss held a typical meeting of his direct-reports and mentioned the possibility of putting someone in Europe over the accounting for our subs (which is currently going through Singapore). He asked what a few of us thought about it and I thought it was a great idea. A bit later he said "who knows - it could be someone in this room." I looked around the room and realized (for the umpteenth time in these meetings) that one of these is not like the others. As in the others all have 10-20 years more experience than I do. My position in Internal Audit is unique in that it reports to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors and "administratively" to the CFO to maintain independence. Anyways, I looked around the room and quickly wrote off the possibility of me taking a position like that due to lack of experience compared to the others. But then a small part of me also realized I was the only one without a family with kids in middle/high school. Hmmm....
After the meeting one of the attendees encouraged me to raise my hand - I thought she was crazy but I didn't immediately dismiss the idea. I went to bible study later that night and my mind was racing a mile a minute. I couldn't tell you for a second what we talked about - I was too busy wondering if my boss could have possibly been talking about me and if I could possibly fathom the idea of moving to Europe. Soon enough though work got very busy and the idea of moving to Europe (namely Finland, where our most recent acquisition took place) faded away. Until January 30 - the day my boss took me to lunch and dropped what I call "the bomb" on me. But I guess I shouldn't call it a bomb because I've never heard of a good bomb and this one was good - crazy, scary, but good. We left it at that I'd take the weekend to think on it, talk it over with my family, and meet with him again Monday. He wanted me to go check things out in the next week or two after that. My initial thought: who goes to Europe on a few days notice? I guess me. Turns out though there were a few roadblocks preventing me from going over that quickly, but I did make it over the first week of March. All of February was spent in limbo - not entirely my favorite place to be.
After the meeting one of the attendees encouraged me to raise my hand - I thought she was crazy but I didn't immediately dismiss the idea. I went to bible study later that night and my mind was racing a mile a minute. I couldn't tell you for a second what we talked about - I was too busy wondering if my boss could have possibly been talking about me and if I could possibly fathom the idea of moving to Europe. Soon enough though work got very busy and the idea of moving to Europe (namely Finland, where our most recent acquisition took place) faded away. Until January 30 - the day my boss took me to lunch and dropped what I call "the bomb" on me. But I guess I shouldn't call it a bomb because I've never heard of a good bomb and this one was good - crazy, scary, but good. We left it at that I'd take the weekend to think on it, talk it over with my family, and meet with him again Monday. He wanted me to go check things out in the next week or two after that. My initial thought: who goes to Europe on a few days notice? I guess me. Turns out though there were a few roadblocks preventing me from going over that quickly, but I did make it over the first week of March. All of February was spent in limbo - not entirely my favorite place to be.
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