The Plan

Trip Start Nov 15, 2007
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Trip End Jan 22, 2008


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Saturday, November 10, 2007

I decided a while back that I'd like to jump off the treadmill for a couple of months and go to some culturally interesting places. And Australia. However, having that protestant work ethic that defines us Anglo-Saxon British types (despite not being a protestant) I had to find an excuse so that it didn't seem like two months of pure self-indulgence. Also, being a careful individual when it comes to matters of a financial nature, I was keen to look for travelling activities that would be mutually beneficial to myself and another party (translation: I'm a bit of a tight bugger and wanted somebody else to pay for me to galivant around the world).
 
So I put a proposal to the boss which went (roughly) along the lines of 'I want all my remaining annual leave in one chunk, I want several weeks of unpaid leave and I want you to pay for this training course in India on a subject that I'm very interested in. And not the cut-down course either, the whole nine-yards'. Now at this point most managers (once they'd stopped laughing) would politely decline and put a black mark on the HR file but my boss said instead (again, roughly) 'Excellent idea, I'll cover the cost of the course and a return flight to Delhi and we'll stagger the unpaid leave so you don't take a big hit the month you get back. How soon can you arrange it?'.
 
A note to anybody reading this who manages people: if you want to inspire genuine loyalty in your minions, this is a VERY good way to do it.
 
So I volunteered for the golden handcuffs agreement on the course cost and signed myself up. So if I come back to Blighty preaching the cause of Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence solutions when I should be going on about Dal in Delhi, Kimchee in Korea or, er, Sushi in Sydney you'll understand why.
 
So, it's a few days in Delhi, a day in Mumbai to meet up with my friend Stephan, then we go to Goa for 10 days. He flies home and I go to Dehradun (in the foothills of the Himalayas) for the course. Then Christmas in South Korea, Sydney for new year, a couple of weeks either wandering around Aus or lazing still in Sydney, three days in Auckland then back home to jetlag, work and winter colds.
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