Its been a busy year...
I was in South Africa for a month in Jan/Feb helping to set up an office that they were trying to outsource 50% of our work to. My new Russian GM had been trying to force my level of management to take oncall status, to manage three locations at once, all the while increasing our workload about 100% with no pay increase and treating us with condescension and disrespect. This level of management was myself (10 years), a coworker who has been there for 20 years, and another coworker who has been there for 15 years. They gave us the new job description while also giving us an option of stepping down from the management position. All three of us stepped down and were replaced by three younger employees who have all been there less than 5 years and were willing to work 80 hours a week for less money. I felt severely disrespected over and over by those French arseholes, turned in my notice, and I am gone.
I now work for an aviation supply chain company... selling aeroplane bits and pieces. My new company is owned by two driven individuals (the last company was a large international French company with dozens of locations), employs just over 100, has three locations internationally, and pays much better. It is a growing company, we just signed a contract to consign, teardown, and sell bits and pieces from around 30 737NG aircraft of a large European Airline (the MAX issue should be a short term benefit for us). I am a Key Account Manager and have initially been given 3 very difficult accounts (2 airline and 1 OEM) but am set to take on another 2 airlines after the new year. Its a new type of position for me and the learning curve has been a bit rough, I have made mistakes, but my sales have picked up considerably in the last month ( I have been here since late September). Things have smoothed over a bit and I am hoping I don't get fired.
Its a great job so far- the only thing I miss about the previous is working 3-4 days a week and this year I was set to get 6 weeks of vacation a year... now I'm working 5 days a week and back down to 2 weeks of vacation.
If you need any 777 flaps or recently OH landing gears, just shoot me an email!
On a side note, my wife and I decided shortly after I returned to SA to fix up our house, to sell, and to buy a bigger house slightly closer to PHX (we were in the boonies called San Tan Valley). The house was quickly sold and we are now in a 2 bedroom apartment.. waiting for our new home to be completed (Expected end of Feb).
Change can be good, live bravely!
"Give us a kiss, big tits."