Finally, after many, many weeks of discussion (and far more email than I’d care to think about), it’s semi-official. (Hey, it’s better than “still in the works”.) The fact that I’m moving to Costa Rica has not changed since the last time I wrote about this. It’s just been a matter of with whom I could discuss the matter.
A few people have known beyond the Executive: Allard, Mark, Marcie, Jason (who’s going down as well), and Tamara (she’s an old friend, and I told her the night before her wedding), but I couldn’t really tell anyone else. Especially the person Allard and I tagged to replace me. (I doubt I’ll be able to publicly post this until after the client has been informed that I’m no longer working on the account.) I have to sign my new contract first.
Boy, isn’t life fun?
Even without my signature on paper (in blood or otherwise), we’ve been given the green light. I need to be in Costa Rica by 15 June to start operations. But we need to be there around the mid-3rd week of May to do interviews. North America has a 14-day termination custom — Costa Rica has a 30-day termination. That means if you want people for 1 July (which we do), you need to secure people by 31 May. Whee.
So amidst my negotiations for the contract, we’ve got to start transitioning to other people. Before I went on vacation back at the beginning of April, I transitioned my stuff (temporarily) to four other people. I had to spread the load — this is a full-time job, and loading one person up with the entire thing is just not a reasonable expectation. 25%-ish percent to others seems to go well.
Now it’s one person. And I’ve got 2.5+ years of knowledge and documentation to give them. I’ve already had a quick chat. Poor, poor Torin.
Now Scott and Martin know I’m leaving. They were surprised. That’s good in a sense, because I half-expected them to already know. (The grapevine runs here pretty well.) The rest of the team will find out on Monday. Then the news will spread pretty darn fast. And my planning for Costa Rica will gain more momentum.
For the record, this is simultaneously exciting and terrifying. There are a lot of variables with all this, and we have by no means a clear picture of all that has to happen.
But hey, if live isn’t complicated, it’s just boring, right?
