Travel Plans
As things progress with this whole consulting opportunity, I have to think about whether this job really is right for me. I’m about to undergo psychometric testing, a common pre-offer assessment here in Australia, and, assuming I pass (and I have pretty much always tested well, except for that time back in the 80’s when I was evaluating an on-line psychometric test and it told me I needed professional help), an offer would indeed be forthcoming. They know I can’t travel right now, but the Sydney office is the resource for the Asia-Pac region, and they’ve got a big project going on in the Philippines, so it wouldn’t be long before I was getting on a plane.

There are people for whom that’s a daunting prospect, but I’m not one of them, except for the inconveniences presented these days. No liquids. No books or magazines (in England, anyway, and that won’t last). No mp3 or CD or tape players. No nail clippers (but who clips their nails on a flight?), etc. Take off your shoes, and all that. Such nonsense. I just don’t want the hassle.

More importantly, however, I’m not 25 years old and single. I have responsibilities at home, and this job would send me out of town for weeks at a time. Sure, it’s just an independent adult person and a couple of cats and an enormous apartment, but saying “it’s just” glosses over a lot of detail that needs due consideration.

That’s balanced, to the degree that compensation is balancing, by the money, which promises to be plenty, although they are inevitably going to low-ball me. Even so, I can expect a substantial increase over what I can expect to earn staying put, and can hope for performance bonuses now and then, an added incentive I wouldn’t see elsewhere. And we really need a reliably substantial income.

Which is another factor: reliability. How reliable is consulting work? Granted, this is an international practice of long-standing and high reputation, but these kinds of outfits aren’t above the old last-in, first-out staffing methodology, and any diminution of the practice or failure of it to grow according to “strategic” plans would see me on the street sooner rather than later. That’s not true where I am now, although anywhere else I may go is going to see me less safe rather than more, regardless of the nature of the business. Meanwhile, I’ve always been an “in-house” employee, never a “hired gun.” I don’t know what the demands really are or how they’d affect me beyond the obvious issues of travel vs. home. I’ve never even looked at being a consultant, never been head-hunted by one of the big consulting practices, never had to make a choice that wasn’t obvious.

Maybe I won’t pass the psych profile. I’m a little more eccentric than not. Look, I still write poetry. I keep a ‘blog. I’ve got cats instead of children. But I probably will pass, and then I’ll have to choose.