The end comes forward

On Tuesday 1 June my boss here told me that my assignment here in India was going to end on 30 June – some seven months before the previously expected date of 1 February 2011. Thankfully this isn’t because of anything I have done (or not done) – it’s a client decision as regards the number of ex-patriates working on the project.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised – looking back over the past assignments I have done at least a quarter of them ended unexpectedly early for one reason or another. The main question that arises as a result is as to whether or not I will be returning to the office in the UK – assuming they have some work – or whether I will need to go somewhere else. Going somewhere else is OK provided one wants to go there and has sufficient time to adjust. The last thing you want to do is come back to the UK, settle back in, buy a new car and stock up on food and beer only to be asked a few weeks later to go on another assignment when a few weeks notice of this would have spared you the expense and enabled you instead to take a holiday between assignments.

The situation this time around is that I am returning to the UK. I was asked if I wanted to go to South Africa – but I turned it down as Johannesburg has never been on my must see before I die list of places to visit.

So come 29 June it will be goodbye to work in Chennai. It will have been just over a year here – looking back it hardly seems five minutes since I got here – yet back then a year here looked like eternity. I’m guessing that I may have to visit here again as the Chennai office is an integral part of the company’s set up – but hopefully any future visits will be “business trips” of only a week or so in duration.

Wait and see I guess. The immediate problem is what to take home and whether it will all get in my suitcase.