Hello,

Well, I haven’t put anything up here for awhile. Up until the end of last week, I was working away in a tough situation. My job has been circling the drain for a while now and the office finally closed last Friday.

The company that I was working for was bought by a larger company. As with so many situations in business, the big fish eat the little fish. The result was that the new owners decided that there would be a benefit to moving my business area to Preston, north of Manchester.

Past of the plan to move the business involved most of the staff, myself included would spend time at the new office training and supporting the new team. I had agreed to spend three weeks there. The last week ended up being split into two part week stints.

The first time I arrived at the hotel in Preston, there was, appropriately, a large drain cleaning truck with a large stainless tank on the back. This, in retrospect, should have been a harbinger of things to come. As it turned out, there was an ongoing drain problem that resulted in the bar and the parts of the reception area in the hotel being rather smelly. This problem had existed before my stay there and was noticeable on the day that I finally left.

The process of training and support was not as smooth as you might have expected. This was due in part to a short time line and insufficient planning. Claims management was a new business in an office that is entirely a call centre. This provided an entirely new set of challenges for the business. It also led to an entertaining discussion one day between me and the new Team Manager that quickly exposed the core issues.

It all came to an end and I was more than happy to leave. I am now unemployed again. The last time I was unemployed was when we arrived here in England. That was a time of enormous upheaval. Being out of work was a part of all of the stuff going on at the time and getting a job was integral to starting being settled. Now, the next job will be a little better considered and hopefully will be that last one I need to look for here.

One of my unemployment projects will be to bring you up to date on some of our goings on over the summer.