Surfs Up..............
There I was, enjoying being my own boss and making the rules up as I went along when along comes a job in Qatar back in the Middle East via an agency that I was with way back when.
That didn't happen because after 3 months and a few telephone interviews which went very well, they decided to promote somebody from within the company ........ hmmm... "why waste my time?" I thought
Anyway, as soon as that went out the window I thought no more about it until a couple of weeks later when the same agency rang me again and asked if I would be interested in going to Jamaica, well you know I just had to say yes, in the back of my mind though I wasn't too bothered if it came off or not.
Its all going to be a bit of a challenge but that's half the fun, what surprises me most is that the methods here are quite old and it's going to take time to get everything updated but the guys seem willing and they want to learn so that will make it easier.
Hopefully this will be my last move for a while as long as things keep going o.k. The picture up top was taken at Long Bay in Port Antonio, one of the many beaches on the island. I'm not based there, I'm in the capital city Kingston about an hour away from any beaches but I'm more of a pool person anyway so I don't mind too much.
I was invited over to Port Antonio by the manager of our I.T. department, his parents live there and he goes every weekend, the only thing I didn't like was the mosquito's, they are RRRRRuthless!! I was telling Sean's father that I was suffering a bit and worryingly he said "I'll have to check that bedroom, maybe there is a spider in there"!! I suppose its something I will have to get used to and to be honest the bites don't seem to be itchy for as long as normal. I don't know if it's because they are a different type of mosquito or the stinky TCP liquid antiseptic is doing a good job, either way I'm a little bit happier.
There's a lot to see and do here and I haven't even scratched the surface yet as I'm still settling in but I've just found a contact for the local golf course which should be good and will keep me busy on the weekends.
I was in a hotel for the first week and a half that I was here but I now have my own place which is much better apart from having to do my own cleaning, cooking and laundry etc but that's not a big deal.
Macky & Daniel are still in the U.K. for now until I've been here for a while and get settled, then we can make some decisions about what we are going to do.
I'm sure you can imagine the amount of people that have said to me "Let me know if there is a job for me" well, as it happens, one of those people was Andrew Cave who some of you will know from here on the blog. Andrew was the service manager for AAA/Opel Brno in the Czech Republic and he and I have been really good friends for quite a while now.
In a strange twist of fate and unknown to me, the Mercedes Service Manager who interviewed me by phone announced that he was leaving the week before I arrived. We only have a 2 week notice period here and he was leaving for personal reasons so because of doing a tour of all the different companies and departments I only got to spend a couple of hours with him before he left. When I was told that Chris was leaving and that we were going to start looking for a replacement, well, it just seemed to come with the right timing and guess who's coming to Jamaica :-) It works out well for the company too because we don't have to pay the agency commissions which are hefty to say the least.
So the Muppet's ride again....... It will be good to have him here as we are on the same wavelength and we work well together. He will be working solely for the Mercedes dealership which itself is going to keep him busy.
The bodyshop that I look after services the whole group and we are independent of the dealerships but we are on the same site as Mercedes, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Honda Motorcycles so we will have mutual customers.
That's all for now, I'll post some updates and photos as and when stuff happens.
No comments:
Post a Comment